Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by
C. W. Leadbeater
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE
ADYAR, MADRAS, INDIA
First Edition: 1925
Second Edition, revised and enlarged: 1927
FOREWORD
THERE is only one reason why I should write this Foreword to the book written by my
honoured colleague. It speaks of many things which have hitherto been studied and discussed
within a comparatively small circle, consisting of students well versed in Theosophical
knowledge, and ready to study statements concerning regions which they could not yet enter
for themselves, but hoped to enter later, and then to verify for themselves the statements
made by their seniors. The rapid changes in the world of thought, arising from the nearness of
the Coming of the World-Teacher, render useful some information as to a part of the world in
which He lives, information which may, perhaps, to some extent prepare the public mind for
His teachings.
Be that as it may, I desire to associate myself with the statements made in this book, for
the accuracy of nearly all of which I can personally vouch; and also to say on behalf of my
colleague as well of myself, that the book is issued as a record of observations carefully made
and carefully recorded, but not claiming any authority, nor making any demand for acceptance.
It makes no claim to inspiration, but is only an honest account of things seen by the writer.
ANNIE BESANT
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PART 1: THE MASTERS
CHAPTER
I. THE EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS:
General Considerations - The Testimony of the Religions - Recent Evidence.
Personal Experience - The Evolution of Life - Superhuman Life - The Brotherhood of
Adepts - The Powers of Adept.
IV. PROBATION:
The Living Image - Younger Probationers - Effect of Cruelty to Children - The
Master of Children - Entering upon Probation - Advice from the Master - Become as
little Children - Effects of Irritability - Selfishness - Worry - Laughter - Idle Words.
Forms Made by Speech - Fuss - The Value of Association.
V. ACCEPTANCE:
Account of an Acceptance - Union with the Master - The Attitude of the Disciple.
The Distribution of Force - The Transmission of Messages - Sensitiveness, Mediumship
and Psychic Powers - Messages from Adepts - The Personal Equation - Testing
Thought - Relaxation - Calm and Balance, The Dark Powers - The Certainty of
Success
CHAPTER I
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
THE existence of Perfected Men is one of the most important of the many new facts which
Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great Theosophical teachings of
karma and evolution by reincarnation. As we look round us we see men obviously at all stages
of their evolution-- many far below ourselves in development, and others who in one way or
another are distinctly in advance of us. Since that is so, there may well be others who are very
much further advanced; indeed, if men are steadily growing better and better through a long
series of successive lives, tending towards a definite goal, there should certainly be some who
have already reached that goal. Some of us in the process of that development have already
succeeded in unfolding some of those higher senses which are latent in every man, and will be
the heritage of all in the future; and by means of those senses we are enabled to see the
ladder of evolution extending far above us as well as far below us, and we can also see that
there are men standing upon every rung of that ladder.
There is a considerable amount of direct testimony to the existence of these Perfected
Men whom we call Masters, but I think that the first step which each one of us should take is to
make certain that there must be such men; only as a later step will it follow that those with
whom we have come into contact belong to that class.
The historical records of every nation are full of the doings of men of genius in all the
different departments of human activity, men who in their special lines of work and ability have
stood far above the rest-- indeed, so far that at times (and probably more often than we know)
their ideals were utterly beyond the comprehension of the people, so that not only the work
that they may have done has been lost to mankind, but their very names even have not been
preserved. It has been said that the history of every nation could be written in the biography of
a few individuals, and that it is always the few, towering above the rest, who initiate the great
forward steps in art, music, literature, science, philosophy, philanthropy, statecraft, and
religion. They stand high sometimes in love of God and their fellow-men, as great saints and
philanthropists; sometimes in understanding of man and Nature, as great philosophers, sages
and scientists; sometimes in work for humanity, as great liberators and reformers. Looking at
these men, and realizing how high they stand among humanity, how far they have gone in
human evolution, is it not logical to say that we cannot see the bounds of human attainment,
and that there may well have been, and even now may be, men far further developed even
than they, men great in spirituality as well as knowledge or artistic power, men complete as
regards human perfections-- men precisely such as the Adepts or Supermen whom some of us
have had the inestimable privilege to encounter?
This galaxy of human genius that enriches and beautifies the pages of history is at the
same time the glory and the hope of all mankind, for we know that these Greater Ones are the
forerunners of the rest, and that They flash out as beacons, as veritable light-bearers to show
us the path which we must tread if we wish to reach the glory which shall presently be
revealed. We have long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the
Divine Life; here is the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that Life itself,
showing that the very reason for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that
the ever-swelling Life needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms
grow, decay and break; but the Spirit grows on eternally, ensouling those forms, and
developing by means of experience gained in and through them, and as each form has served
its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside that another and better form may take its place.
Behind the evolving form burgeons out ever the Life eternal, the Life Divine. That Life of
God permeates the whole of nature, which is but the many-coloured cloak which He has
donned; it is He who lives in the beauty of the flower, in the strength of the tree, in the
swiftness and grace of the animal, as well as in the heart and soul of man. It is because His
will is evolution that all life everywhere is pressing onward and upward; and it is therefore that
the existence of Perfected Men at the end of this long line of ever-unfolding power and wisdom
and love is the most natural thing in the world. Even beyond Them-- beyond our sight and our
comprehension-- stretches a vista of still greater glory; some hint of that we may endeavour to
give later, but it is useless to speak of it now.
The logical consequence of all this is that there must be Perfected Men, and there are not
wanting signs of the existence of such Men in all ages who, instead of leaving the world
entirely, to pursue a life of their own in the divine or superhuman kingdoms, have remained in
touch with humanity, through love of it, to assist its evolution in beauty and love and truth, to
help, as it were, to cultivate the Perfect Man-- just as here and there we find a botanist who
has special love for plants, and glories in the production of a perfect orange or a perfect rose.
RECENT EVIDENCE
There is much direct and recent evidence for the existence of these Great Ones. In my
earlier days I never needed any such evidence, because I was fully persuaded as a result of my
studies that there must be such people. To believe that there were such glorified Men seemed
perfectly natural, and my only desire was to meet Them face to face Yet there are many
among the newer members of the Society who, reasonably enough, want to know what
evidence there is. There is a considerable amount of personal testimony. Madame Blavatsky
and Colonel Olcott, the co-founders of The Theosophical Society, Dr. Annie Besant, our present
President, and I myself-- all of us have seen some of these Great Ones, and many other
members of the Society have also been privileged to see one or two of Them, and there is
ample testimony in what all these people have written.
It is sometimes objected that those who saw Them, or fancied that they did so, may have
been dreaming or perhaps deluded. The chief reason, I think, for the possibility of such a
suggestion is that we have very rarely seen the Adepts at a time when both They and we were
in our physical bodies. In the early days of the Society, when only Madame Blavatsky had
developed higher faculties, the Masters not infrequently materialized Themselves so that all
could see Them, and showed Themselves thus physically on various occasions. You will find
many records of such happenings in the earlier history of our Society, but of course the Great
One so showing Himself was not in His physical body, but in a materialized form.
Many of us habitually and constantly see Them during our sleep. We go out in our astral
bodies (or in the mental body, according to our development) and we visit Them and see Them
in Their physical bodies; but we are not at that time in ours, and that is why on the physical
plane people tend to be sceptical about such experiences. Men object: “But in these cases
either you who saw Them were out of the physical body, and may have been dreaming or
deluded, or Those who appeared to you came phenomenally and then disappeared again; so
how do you know that They were what you suppose Them to be?”
There are a few cases in which both the Adept and the person who saw Him were in the
physical body. It happened with Madame Blavatsky; I have heard her testify that she lived for
some time in a monastery in Nepal, where she saw three of our Masters constantly in Their
physical vehicles. Some of Them have come down more than once from Their mountain
retreats into India in Their physical bodies. Colonel Olcott spoke of having seen two of Them on
those occasions; he had met the Master Morya and also the Master Kuthumi. Damodar K.
Mavalankar, whom I knew in 1884, had encountered the Master Kuthumi in His physical body.
There was the case of S. Ramaswami Iyer, a gentleman whom I knew well in those days, who
had the experience of meeting the Master Morya physically, and has written an account of that
meeting which I shall quote later; and there was the case of Mr. W. T. Brown of the London
Lodge, who also was privileged to meet one of the Great Ones under similar conditions. There
is also a vast amount of Indian testimony which has never been collected and sifted, mainly
because those to whom these experiences came were so thoroughly persuaded of the
existence of Supermen and of the possibility of meeting Them that they did not regard any
individual case as worthy of record.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
I myself can report two occasions on which I have met a Master, both of us being in the
physical vehicle. One of Them was the Adept to whom the name of Jupiter was assigned in the
book of The Lives of Alcyone, who greatly assisted in the writing of portions of Madame
Blavatsky' s famous work Isis Unveiled, when that was being done in Philadelphia and New
York. When I was living at Adyar, He was so kind as to request my revered teacher, Swami T.
Subba Row, to bring me to call upon Him. Obeying His summons we journeyed to His house,
and were most graciously received by Him. After a long conversation of the deepest interest,
we had the honour of dining with Him, Brahman though He be, and spent the night and part of
the next day under His roof. In that case it will be admitted that there could be no question of
illusion. The other Adept whom I had the privilege of encountering physically was the Master
the Comte de St. Germain, called sometimes the Prince Rakoczy. I met Him under quite
ordinary circumstances (without any previous appointment, and as though by chance) walking
down the Corso in Rome, dressed just as any Italian gentleman might be. He took me up into
the gardens on the Pincian hill, and we sat for more than an hour talking about the Society and
its work; or perhaps I should rather say that He spoke and I listened, although when He asked
questions I answered.
Other members of the Brotherhood I have seen under varying circumstances. My first
encounter with one of them was in a hotel in Cairo; I was on my way out to India with Madame
Blavatsky and some others, and we stayed in that city for a time. We all used to gather in
Madame Blavatsky' s room for work, and I was sitting on the floor, cutting out and arranging
for her a quantity of newspaper articles which she wanted. She sat at a table close by; indeed
my left arm was actually touching her dress. The door of the room was in full sight, and it
certainly did not open; but quite suddenly, without any preparation, there was a man standing
almost between me and Madame Blavatsky. Within touch of both of us. It gave me great start,
and I jumped up in some confusion; Madame Blavatsky was much amused and said: “If you do
not know enough not to be startled at such a trifle as that, you will not get far in this occult
work.” I was introduced to the visitor, who was not then an Adept, but an Arhat, which is one
grade below that state; He has since become the Master Djwal Kul.
Some months after that the Master Morya came to us one day, looking exactly as though
in a physical body; He walked through the room where I was in order to communicate with
Madame Blavatsky, Who was in her bedroom inside. That was the first time I had seen him
plainly and clearly, for I had not then developed my latent senses sufficiently to remember
what I saw in the subtle body. I saw the Master Kuthumi under similar conditions on the roof of
our Headquarters at Adyar; He was stepping over a balustrade as though He had just
materialized from the empty air on the other side of it. I have also many times seen the Master
Djwal Kul on that roof in the same way.
This would, I suppose, be considered less certain evidence, since the Adepts came as
apparitions do; but, as I have since learned to use my higher vehicles freely, and to visit these
Great Ones in that way, I can testify that Those who in the early years of the Society came and
materialized for us are the same Men whom I have often since seen living in Their own homes.
People have suggested that I and others who have the same experience may be but dreaming,
since these visits take place during the sleep of the body; I can only reply that it is a
remarkably consistent dream, extending in my own case over forty years, and that it has been
dreamt simultaneously by a large number of people.
Those who wish to collect evidence about these matters (and it is quite reasonable that
they should wish to do so) should turn to the earlier literature of the Society. If they meet our
President, they can hear from her how many of the Great Ones she has seen on different
occasions; and there are many of our members who will bear witness without hesitation that
they have seen a Master. It may be that in meditation they have seen His face, and later have
had definite proof that He is a real being. Much evidence may be found in Colonel Olcott' s Old
Diary Leaves, and there is an interesting treatise called Do the Brothers Exist? written by Mr. A.
O. Hume, a man who stood high in the Civil Service in India, and worked much with our late
Vice-President, Mr. A. P. Sinnett. It was published in a book entitled Hints on Esoteric
Theosophy. Mr. Hume, who was a sceptical Anglo-Indian with a legal mind, went into the
question of the existence of the Brothers (as the Masters are also called, because They belong
to a great Brotherhood, and also because they are the Elder Brothers of humanity) and even at
that early date decided that he had overwhelming testimony that They did exist; and very
much more evidence has accumulated since that book was published.
The possession of extended vision and other faculties resulting from the unfolding of our
latent powers has also brought within our constant experience the fact that there are other
orders of beings than the human, some of whom rank alongside the Adepts in a grade of
existence higher than our own. We meet with some whom we call Devas or Angels, and with
others whom we see to be far beyond ourselves in every respect.
SUPERHUMAN LIFE
Now only, for the first time; does he enter upon his real life, for the whole of this
stupendous process of evolution (through all the lower kingdoms and then through the human
kingdom up to the attainment of Adeptship) is but a preparation for that true life of the Spirit
which begins only when man becomes more than man. Humanity is the final class of the world-
school; and when a man has been trained therein he passes out into the real life, the life of the
glorified Spirit, the life of the Christ. What that is we know but little as yet, though we see
some of Those who are sharing it. It has a glory and a splendour which is beyond all
comparison, beyond our comprehension ; and yet it is a vivid and living fact, and the
attainment of it by every one of us is an absolute certainty from which we cannot escape even
if we would. If we act selfishly, if we set ourselves against the current of evolution, we can
delay our progress; but we cannot finally prevent it.
Having finished with human life, the Perfected Man usually drops His various material
bodies. but He retains the power to take up any of them if ever He should need them in course
of His work. In the majority of cases, one who gains that level no longer needs a physical body.
He no longer retains an astral, a mental or even a causal body, but lives permanently at His
highest level. Whenever for any purpose He needs to deal with a lower plane, He must take a
temporary vehicle belonging to that plane, because only through the medium of its matter can
He come into contact with those who live therein. If He wishes to talk to men physically, He
must take a physical body; He must have at least a partial materialization, or He cannot speak.
In the same way, if He wishes to impress our minds, He must draw round himself a mental
body. Whenever He needs in His work to take a lower vehicle, He has the power to do so; but
He holds it only temporarily. There are seven lines of still further progress along which the
Perfected Man can go, a list of which we shall give in a later chapter.
THEIR APPEARANCE
THERE has been among Theosophical students a great deal of vagueness and uncertainty
about the Masters, so perhaps it may help us to realize how natural Their lives are, and how
there is an ordinary physical side to them, if I say a few words about the daily life and
appearance of some of Them. There is no one physical characteristic by which an Adept can be
infallibly distinguished from other men, but He always appears impressive, noble, dignified,
holy and serene, and anyone meeting Him could hardly fail to recognize that he was in the
presence of a remarkable man. He is the strong but silent man, speaking only when He has a
definite object in view, to encourage, to help or to warn, yet He is wonderfully benevolent and
full of a keen sense of humour-- humour always of a kindly order, used never to wound, but
always to lighten the troubles of life. The Master Morya once said that it is impossible to make
progress on the occult Path without a sense of humour, and certainly all the Adepts whom I
have seen have possessed that qualification.
Most of Them are distinctly fine-looking men; Their physical bodies are practically
perfect, for They live in complete obedience to the laws of health, and above all They never
worry about anything. All Their evil karma has long been exhausted, and thus the physical
body is as perfect an expression of the Augoeides or glorified body of the ego as the limitations
of the physical plane will allow, so that not only is the present body of an Adept usually
splendidly handsome, but also new body that He may take in a subsequent incarnation is likely
to be an almost exact reproduction of the old one, allowing for racial and family differences,
because there is nothing to modify it. This freedom from karma gives Them, when for any
reason They choose to take new bodies, entire liberty to select a birth in any country or race
that may be convenient for the work that They have to do, and thus the nationality of the
particular bodies which They happen to be wearing at any given time is not of primary
importance.
To know that a certain man is an Adept it would be necessary to see His causal body, for
in that His development would show by its greatly increased size, and by a special
arrangement of its colours into concentric spheres, such as is indicated to some extent in the
illustration of the causal body of an Arhat (Plate xxvi) in Man, Visible and Invisible.
A RAVINE IN TIBET
There is a certain valley, or rather ravine, in Tibet, where three of these Great Ones, the
Master Morya, the Master Kuthumi and the Master Djwal Kul are living at the present time.
A Ravine in Tibet
54. The Master Djwal Kul, at Madame Blavatsky' s request, once made for her a
precipitated picture of the mouth of that ravine, and the illustration given herewith is a
reproduction of a photograph of that. The original, which is precipitated on silk, is preserved in
the shrine-room of the Headquarters of The Theosophical Society at Adyar. On the left of the
picture the Master Morya is seen on horse-back near the door of His house. The dwelling of the
Master Kuthumi does not appear in the picture, being higher up the valley, round the bend on
the right. Madame Blavatsky begged the Master Djwal Kul to put himself into the picture; He at
first refused, but eventually added Himself as a small figure standing in the water and grasping
a pole, but with His back to the spectator! This original is faintly tinted, the colours being blue,
green and black. It bears the signature of the artist-- the nickname Gai Ben-Jamin, which He
bore in His youth in the early days of the Society, long before He reached Adeptship.¹ The
scene is evidently taken early in the day, as the morning mists are still clinging to the hillsides.
¹ This signature was upon the lower margin outside the actual picture, and consequently
it does not appear in our reproduction.
The Masters Morya and Kuthumi occupy houses on opposite sides of this narrow ravine,
the slopes of which are covered with pine trees. Paths run down the ravine past Their houses,
and meet at the bottom, where there is a little bridge. Close to the bridge a narrow door, which
may be seen on the left at the bottom of the picture, leads to a system of vast subterranean
halls containing an occult museum of which the Master Kuthumi is the Guardian on behalf of
the Great White Brotherhood.
The contents of this museum are of the most varied character. They appear to be
intended as a kind of illustration of the whole process of evolution. For example, there are here
the most life-like images of every type of man which has existed on this planet from the
commencement-- from gigantic loose-jointed Lemurians to pigmy remains of even earlier and
less human races. Models in alto relievo show all the variations of the surface of the earth-- the
conditions before and after the great cataclysms which have changed it so much. Huge
diagrams illustrate the migrations of the different races of the world, and show exactly how far
they spread from their respective sources. Other similar diagrams are devoted to the influence
of the various religions of the world, showing where each was practised in its original purity,
and where it became mingled with and distorted by the remains of other religions.
Amazingly life-like statues perpetuate the physical appearance of certain of the great
leaders and teachers of long-forgotten races; and various objects of interest connected with
important and even unnoticed advancements in civilization are preserved for the examination
of posterity. Original manuscripts of incredible antiquity and of priceless value are here to be
seen-- a manuscript, for example, written by the hand of the Lord Buddha Himself in His final
life as Prince Siddartha, and another written by the Lord Christ during His birth in Palestine.
Here is kept that marvellous original of the Book of Dzyan, which Madame Blavatsky describes
in the opening of The Secret Doctrine. Here too are strange scripts from other worlds than
ours. Animal and vegetable forms are also depicted, some few of which are known to us as
fossils, though most of them are unimagined by our modern science. Actual models of some of
the great cities of remote and forgotten antiquity are here for the study of the pupils.
All statues and models are vividly coloured exactly as were the originals; and we may
note that the collection here was intentionally put together at the time, in order to represent to
posterity the exact stages through which the evolution or civilization of the time was passing,
so that instead of mere incomplete fragments, such as our museums so often present to us,
we have in all cases an intentionally educative series of presentations. There we find models of
all the kinds of machinery which the different civilizations have evolved, and also there are
elaborate and abundant illustrations of the types of magic in use at the various periods of
history.
In the vestibule leading to these vast halls are kept the living images of those pupils of
the Masters Morya and Kuthumi who happen at the time to be on probation, which I will
describe later. These images are ranged round the walls like statues, and are perfect
representations of the pupils concerned. It is not probable, however, that they are visible to
physical eyes, for the lowest matter entering into their composition is etheric.
Near the bridge there is also a small Temple with turrets of somewhat Burmese form, to
which a few villagers go to make offerings of fruit and flowers, and to burn camphor and recite
the Pancha Sila. A rough and uneven track leads down the valley by the side of the stream.
From either of the two houses of the Masters the other house can be seen ; they are both
above the bridge, but both cannot be seen from it, since the ravine bends round. If we follow
the path up the valley past the house of the Master Kuthumi it will lead us to a large pillar of
rock, beyond which, the ravine bending round again, it passes out of sight. Some distance
further on the ravine opens out into a plateau on which there is a lake, in which, tradition tells
us, Madame Blavatsky used to bathe ; and it is said that she found it very cold. The valley is
sheltered and faces south, and though the surrounding country is under snow during the
winter, I do not remember having seen any near the Masters' houses. These houses are of
stone, very heavily and strongly built.
THE HOUSE OF THE MASTER KUTHUMI
The house of the Master Kuthumi is divided into two parts by a passage-way running
straight through it. As will be seen from our diagram 1 (p.32), which shows the ground plan of
the southern half of the house, on entering the passage, the first door on the right leads into
the principal room of the house, in which our Master usually sits. It is large and lofty (about
fifty feet by thirty feet), in many ways more like a hall than a room, and it occupies the whole
of the front of the house on that side of the passage. Behind that large room are two other
nearly square rooms, one of which He uses as a library, and the other as a bedroom. That
completes that side or division of the house, which is apparently reserved for the Master' s
personal use, and is surrounded by a broad veranda. The other side of the house, on the left of
the passage as one enters, seems to be divided into smaller rooms and offices of various
kinds ; we have had no opportunity of closely examining them, but we have noted that just
across the passage from the bedroom is a well-appointed bathroom.
The large room is well supplied with windows, both along the front and the end-- so well
that on entering one gets the impression of an almost continuous outlook ; and under the
windows runs a long seat. There is also a somewhat unusual feature for that country, a large
open fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite the front windows. This is so arranged as to
heat all three rooms, and it has a curious hammered iron cover, which I am told is unique in
Tibet. Over the opening of that fire-place is a mantelpiece, and near by stands the Master' s
armchair of very old carved wood, hollowed to fit the sitter, so that for it no cushions are
required. Dotted about the room are tables and settees or sofas, mostly without backs, and in
one corner is the keyboard of the Master' s organ. The ceiling is perhaps twenty feet high, and
is very handsome, with its fine carved beams, which descend into ornamental points where
they meet one another and divide the ceiling into oblong sections. An arched opening with a
pillar in the centre, somewhat in the Gothic style, but without glass, opens into the study, and
a similar window opens into the bedroom. This latter room is very simply furnished. There is an
ordinary bed, swung hammock-like between two carved wooden supports fixed in the wall (one
of these carved to imitate a lion' s head, and the other an elephant' s), and the bed when not
in use folds up against the wall.
The library is a fine room, containing thousands of volumes. Running out from the wall
there are tall book-shelves, filled with books in many languages, a number of them being
modern European works and at the top there are open shelves for manuscripts. The Master is a
great linguist, and besides being a fine English scholar has a thorough knowledge of French
and German. The library also contains a typewriter, which was presented to the Master by one
of His pupils.
DIAGRAM 1
Of the Master' s family I know but little. There is a lady, evidently a pupil, whom He calls
` sister' . Whether she is actually His sister or not I do not know; she might possibly be a
cousin or a niece. She looks much older than He, but that would not make the relationship
improbable, as He has appeared of about the same age for a long time. She resembles Him to
a certain extent, and once or twice when there have been gatherings she has come and joined
the party; though her principal work seems to be to look after the house-keeping and manage
the servants. Among the latter are an old man and his wife, who have been for a long time in
the Master' s service. They do not know anything of the real dignity of their employer, but
regard Him as a very indulgent and gracious patron, and naturally they benefit greatly by
being in His service.
OTHER HOUSES
The house of the Master Morya is on the opposite side of the valley, but much lower
down-- quite close, in fact, to the little temple and the entrance to the caves. It is of an
entirely different style of architecture, having at least two stories, and the front facing the road
has verandas at each level which are almost entirely glassed in. The general method and
arrangement of His life is much the same as that already described in the case of the Master
Kuthumi.
If we walk up the road on the left bank of the stream, rising gradually along the side of
the valley, we pass on the right the house and grounds of the Master Kuthumi, and further up
the hill we find on the same side of the road a small hut or cabin which He who is now the
Master Djwal Kul constructed for Himself with His own hands in the days of His pupilage, in
order that He might have an abiding-place quite near to His Master. In that cabin hangs a sort
of plaque upon which at His request one of the English pupils of the Master Kuthumi
precipitated many years ago an interior view of the large room in the house of the Master
Kuthumi, showing the figures of various Masters and pupils. This was done in commemoration
of a certain especially happy and fruitful evening at the Master' s house.
BORROWED VEHICLES
By temporarily occupying the body of a pupil, the Adept avoids these inconveniences, and
at the same time gives an incalculable impetus to the pupil' s evolution. He inhabits the vehicle
only when He needs it-- to deliver a lecture, perhaps, or to pour out a special flood of blessing;
and as soon as He has done what He wishes, He steps out of the body, and the pupil, who has
all the while been in attendance, resumes it, as the Adept goes back to His own proper vehicle
to continue His usual work for the helping of the world. In this way His regular business is but
little affected, yet He has always at His disposal a body through which He can co-operate,
when required, on the physical plane, in the beatific mission of the World-Teacher.
We can readily imagine in what way this will affect the pupil who is so favoured as to
have the opportunity of thus lending his body to a Great One, though the extent of its action
may well be beyond our calculation. A vehicle tuned by such an influence will be to him verily
an assistance, not a limitation ; and while his body is in use he will always have the privilege of
bathing in the Adept' s marvellous magnetism, for he must be at hand to resume charge as
soon as the Master has finished with it.
This plan of borrowing a suitable body is always adopted by the Great Ones when They
think it well to descend among men, under conditions such as those which now obtain in the
world. The Lord Gautama employed it when He came to attain the Buddha-hood, and the Lord
Maitreya took the same course when He visited Palestine two thousand years ago. The only
exception known to me is that when a new Bodhisattva assumes the office of World-Teacher
after His predecessor has become the Buddha, on His first appearance in the world in that
capacity He takes birth as a little child in the ordinary way. Thus did our Lord, the present
Bodhisattva, when He took birth as Shri Krishna on the glowing plains of India, to be
reverenced and loved with a passion of devotion that has scarcely ever been equalled.
This temporary occupation of a pupil' s body should not be confused with the permanent
use by an advanced person of a vehicle prepared for him by some one else. It is generally
known among her followers that our great Founder, Madame Blavatsky, when she left the body
in which we knew her, entered another which had just been abandoned by its original tenant.
As to whether that body had been specially prepared for her use, I have no information; but
other instances are known in which that was done. There is always in such cases a certain
difficulty in adapting the vehicle to the needs and idiosyncrasies of the new occupant; and it is
probable that it never becomes a perfectly fitting garment. There is for the incoming ego a
choice between devoting a considerable amount of time and trouble to superintending the
growth of a new vehicle, which would be a perfect expression of him, as far as that is possible
on the physical plane; or of avoiding all that difficulty by entering the body of another-- a
process which will provide a reasonably good instrument for all ordinary purposes; but it will
never fulfil in every respect all that its owner desires. In all cases, a pupil is naturally eager to
have the honour of giving up his body to his Master; but few indeed are the vehicles pure
enough to be so used.
The question is often raised as to why an Adept, whose work seems to lie almost entirely
on higher planes, needs a physical body at all. It is really no concern of ours, but if speculation
on such a matter be not irreverent, various reasons suggest themselves. The Adept spends
much of His time in projecting streams of influence, and while, so far as has been observed,
these are most often on the higher mental level, or on the plane above that, it is probable that
they may sometimes at least be etheric currents, and for the manipulation of these the
possession of a physical body is undoubtedly an advantage. Again, most of the Masters whom I
have seen have a few pupils or assistants who live with or near Them on the physical plane,
and a physical body may be necessary for their sake. Of this we may be certain, that if an
Adept chooses to take the trouble to maintain such a body, He has a good reason for it; for we
know enough of Their methods of working to be fully aware that They always do everything in
the best way, and by the means which involve the least expenditure of energy.
PART II
THE PUPILS
CHAPTER III
There are always the three ways; a man may bring himself to the Master' s feet by deep
study, because in that way he comes to know and to feel; and certainly He may be reached by
deep devotion long continued, by the constant uplifting of the soul towards Him. And there is
also the method of throwing oneself into some definite activity for Him. But it must be
something definitely done for Him with that thought in mind: “If there be credit or glory in this
work I do not want it; I do it in my Master' s name; to Him be the glory and praise.” The poem
quoted above also says: “There be who nor pray nor study, but yet can work right well.” And
that is true. There are some who cannot make anything much of meditation, and when they try
to study they find it very hard. They ought to continue to try both these things, because we
must develop all sides of our nature, but most of all they should throw themselves into the
work, and do something for their fellow-men.
That is the surest of all appeals-- to do a thing in His name, to do a good act thinking of
Him, remembering that He is much more sensitive to thought than ordinary people. If a man
thinks of a friend at a distance, his thought goes to that friend and influences him, so that the
friend thinks of the sender of the thought unless his mind is much engaged at the moment
with something else. But however much occupied a Master may be, a thought directed to Him
makes a certain impression, and although perhaps at the moment He may not take any notice,
yet the touch is there, and He will know of that and will send out His love and His energy in
response to it.
The Master' s work is not something peculiar and apart from our fellows. To raise a good
family who will serve Him in turn, to make money to use in His service, to win power in order
to help Him with it-- all these may be part of it; yet in doing these things the disciple must be
ever on guard against self-deception, must see that he is not cloaking with the holiness of the
Master' s name what is, underneath, a selfish desire to wield power or handle money. The
disciple of the Master has to look round and see what there is to do which is within his power.
He must not look with disfavour upon the humblest task, thinking: “I am too good for this.” In
the Master' s business no part is more important than any other, though some portions are
more difficult than others, and therefore require special training or unusual faculties or
abilities.
At the same time certain organized efforts are being made in which the Masters take
special interest. Foremost among these is The Theosophical Society, which was founded at
Their bidding and for Their purposes. So unquestionably anything that one can do for his
Theosophical Lodge is the very best thing to do. It may easily happen in many cases that one
has no opportunity to do that; he must then find some other way of service. The Masters are
also deeply interested in Co-Masonry and in the Liberal Catholic Church; I shall say something
later of the great work which these are doing on occult lines. There is also the Order of the
Star in the East, which is preparing for the coming of the World-Teacher, and there are a
variety of movements for the benefit of young people, among which the Order of the Round
Table plays a leading part. To this must be added activity in the field of education on new lines,
and work in connection with such bodies as the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides. The Boy Scout
movement is worthy of all the support that can be given to it, for the training which it supplies
in the way of honour, helpfulness and general efficiency is exactly what is needed to develop in
the average boy the characteristics which will prepare him for the Masters service later. It is of
far more value to him, both physically and spiritually, than any education given in an ordinary
school. It is not without significance to those of us who understand, that our President holds
the position of Honorary Chief Commissioner of Scouts in India, and has done much to
promote the spread of the organization.
In quite unorganized ways also a great deal can be done. For example, the influence of
beauty in human life is immeasurably uplifting, for beauty is God' s manifestation in Nature,
so-- to give one instance-- the roadside gardens of all who are striving along these lines should
be notable for their neatness and beauty. Many people are careless in these small matters;
they are untidy; they leave rubbish in their wake; but all that indicates a character very far
removed from the spirit of the Master.
If we work along the same lines as the Master works we shall come more and more into
sympathy with Him, and our thoughts will become more and more like His. This will bring us
nearer and nearer to Him both in thought and activity, and in so doing presently we shall
attract His attention, for He is all the time watching the world in order to find those who will be
of use in His work. Noticing us, He will presently draw us nearer to Him for still closer and
more detailed observation. That is usually done by bringing us into contact with one who is
already His pupil. It is thus quite unnecessary for anyone to make any direct effort to attract
His attention.
NONE IS OVERLOOKED
When a student understands all this he will no longer ask: “What can I do that will attract
the Master' s attention?” He will know that it is quite unnecessary that we should try to do so,
and that there is not the slightest fear that anyone will be overlooked.
I remember very well an incident of the early days of my own connection with the Great
Ones, which bears on this point. I knew on the physical plane a man of vast erudition and of
the most saintly character, who believed thoroughly in the existence of the Masters, and
devoted his life to the one object of qualifying himself for Their service. His seemed to me a
man in every way so entirely suitable for discipleship, so obviously better than myself in many
ways, that I could not understand how it was that he was not already recognized; and so,
being young in the work and ignorant, one day, when a good opportunity offered itself, very
humbly and as it were apologetically, I mentioned his name to the Master, with the suggestion
that he might perhaps prove a good instrument. A smile of kindly amusement broke out upon
the Master' s face as He said:
“Ah, you need not fear that your friend is being overlooked; no one can ever be
overlooked; but in this case there still remains a certain karma to be worked out, which makes
it impossible at the moment to accept your suggestion. Soon your friend will pass away from
the physical plane, and soon he will return to it again, and then the expiation will be complete,
and what you desire for him will have become possible.”
And then, with the gentle kindness which is always so prominent a characteristic in Him,
He blended my consciousness with His in an even more intimate manner, and raised it to a
plane far higher than I could then reach, and from that elevation He showed me how the Great
Ones look out upon the world. The whole earth lay before us with all its millions of souls,
undeveloped, most of them, and therefore inconspicuous; but wherever amidst all that mighty
multitude there was one who was approaching even at a great distance the point at which
definite use could be made of him, he stood out among the rest just as the flame of a
lighthouse stands out in the darkness of the night.
“Now you see,” said the Master, “how utterly impossible it would be that anyone should
be overlooked who is even within measurable distance of the possibility of acceptance as a
probationer.”
We can do nothing on our side but steadily work at the improvement of our character,
and endeavour in every possible way, by the study of Theosophical works, by self-
development, and by the unselfishness of our devotion to the interests of others, to fit
ourselves for the honour which we desire, having within our minds the utter certainty that as
soon as we are ready the recognition will assuredly come. But until we can be utilized
economically-- until, that is to say, the force spent upon us will bring forth, through our
actions, at least as much result as it would if spent in any other way, it would be a violation of
duty on the part of the Master to draw us into close relations with Him.
We may be quite sure that there are in reality no exceptions to this rule, even though we
may sometimes think that we have seen some. A man may be put upon probation by an Adept
while he has still some obvious faults, but we may be sure that in such a case there are good
qualities under the surface which far more than counterbalance the superficial defects. It is
only the Master who can judge how far our faults affect our usefulness to Him. We cannot tell
exactly to what extent any failings of ours would react upon His work; but He, looking at the
problem from above, can see quite clearly all the factors in the case, so that His decision is
always just, and in the best interests of all. Sentimental considerations have no place in
occultism, which has been defined as the apotheosis of common sense, working always for the
greatest good of the greatest number. In it we learn of many new facts and forces, and we
remodel our lives in accordance with this additional knowledge.
This after all differs in no way from our practice (or what ought to be our practice) on the
physical plane. New discoveries along scientific lines are constantly being made, and we use
them and adapt our lives to them. Why should we not do the same when the discoveries are
on higher planes and connected with the inner life? To understand the laws of nature and to
live in harmony with them is the way to comfort, health and progress, both spiritual and
physical.
Another consideration which sometimes comes into play is the working of the law of
karma. Like the rest of us, the Great Masters of Wisdom have a long line of lives behind Them,
and in those lives They, like others, have made certain karmic ties, and so sometimes it
happens that a particular individual has a claim on Them for some service rendered long ago.
In the lines of past lives which we have examined we have sometimes come across instances
of such a karmic link.
WRONG IDEAS
Another quality most essential for the aspirant is open-mindedness and freedom from
bigotry of any sort. Madame Blavatsky once told us that her Master had remarked that
erroneous beliefs were sometimes a great obstacle. As an example He said that there were a
hundred thousand of the Indian sannyasis who were leading the purest lives and were quite
ready for discipleship, except for the fact that their ingrained wrong thought on certain
subjects made it impossible for even the Masters to penetrate their auras. Such thoughts, He
said, drew round them undesirable elementals, most unpleasant influences, which reacted
upon them and intensified their misconceptions, so that until they developed enough reason
and intuition to shake themselves free from these they were practically impervious to
suggestion.
It has been said that an honest man is the noblest work of God; and Colonel Ingersoll
once parodied that proverb by reversing it, and saying that an honest God was the noblest
work of man-- by which he meant that each man arrives at his conception of God by
personifying those qualities in himself which he thinks most worthy of admiration, and then
raising them to the n th power. So if a man has a noble conception of God, it shows that there
is much nobility in his own nature, even though he may not always live up to his ideal.
But a wrong conception of God is one of the most serious hindrances under which a man
can suffer. The idea of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, bloodthirsty, jealous, mean and cruel,
has been responsible for an amount of harm in the world that cannot easily be estimated. Any
thought of God which induces fear of Him is absolutely disastrous, and precludes all hope of
real progress; it shuts a man up in the darkest of dungeons instead of leading him onward and
upward into the glory of the sunlight. It draws round him a host of the type of elemental which
revels in fear, gloats over it and intensifies it by every means within his power. When a man is
in that parlous condition it is all but impossible to help him; wherefore to teach a man (still
more, a child) such a blasphemous doctrine is one of the worst crimes that anyone can
commit. The disciple must be utterly free from all cramping superstitions of this kind.
COMMON HINDRANCES
People very often come or write to our President or to myself and say: “Why does not the
Master use me ? I am so earnest and devoted to Him. I do so want to be used. I want Him to
take me and teach me. Why does He not do so?”
There may be many reasons why He does not. Sometimes a person, asking that, has
some prominent fault which is in itself quite a sufficient reason. Not infrequently, I regret to
say, it is pride. A person may have so good a conceit of himself that he is not amenable to
teaching, although he thinks that he is. Very often in this civilization of ours the fault is
irritability. A good and worthy person may have his nerves all ajangle, so that it would be
impossible for him to be drawn into very close and constant touch with the Master. Sometimes
the impediment is curiosity. Some are surprised to hear that that is a serious failing, but
certainly it is-- curiosity about the affairs of other people, and especially about their occult
standing or development. It would be quite impossible that a Master should draw near to
Himself one who had that failing.
Another common hindrance is readiness to be offended. Many a good and earnest
aspirant is so easily offended as to be of practically no use in the work, because he cannot get
on with other people. He will have to wait until he has learnt to adapt himself, and to co-
operate with any person whatever.
Many people who make the inquiry have failings of this kind, and they do not like it if
their fault is pointed out to them. They do not generally believe that they have it, and imagine
that we are in error; but in rare cases they are willing to profit by the suggestion. I remember
very well a lady coming to me in an American city and asking the question: “What is the
matter with me? Why may I not draw near to the Master?” “Do you really want to know?” I
asked. Yes, certainly, she really wished to know. She adjured me to look, at her occultly, or
clairvoyantly, or in any way I wished, at all her vehicles and her past lives, and to decide
thereby. I took her at her word and said: “Well, if you really want to know, there is too much
ego in your cosmos. You are thinking all about yourself and not enough about the work.”
Of course she was terribly offended; she flounced out of the room, and said she did not
think much of my clairvoyance; but that lady had the courage to come back two years later
and say: “What you told me was quite true, and I am going to put it right and to work hard at
it.” That story has repeated itself many times, except that this is the only case in which the
person came back and acknowledged the fault. Unquestionably the disciple who is willing to
see himself as others see him may learn much that will help him to progress. I recollect that
one of the Masters once remarked that the first duty of a chela is to hear without anger
anything the guru may say. He should be eager to change himself, to get rid of his faults.
Madame Blavatsky said: “Chelaship has been defined by a Master as a psychic resolvent, which
eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind.”1
1 Five Years of Theosophy , Second Edition, p. 36.
Self-centredness is only another form of pride, but it is very prominent at the present
day. The personality which we have been building up for many thousands of years has grown
strong and often self-assertive, and it is one of the hardest tasks to reverse its attitude and
compel it to acquire the habit of looking at things from the standpoint of others. One must
certainly step out of the centre of his own circle, as I explained in The Inner Life, if he wishes
to come to the Master.
It sometimes happens, however, that those who ask the question have not any particular
outstanding defect, and when one looks them over, one can only say: “I do not see any definite
reason, any one fault which is holding you back, but you will have to grow a little all round.”
That is an unpalatable thing to have to tell a person, but it is the fact ; they are not yet big
enough, and must grow before they will be worthy.
One thing which often prevents people from coming into touch with the Masters is lack of
faith and will; unless a person tries earnestly with the full belief that he can, and with the
determination that he will, succeed one day, and that that day shall come as soon as possible,
it is fairly certain that he will not prevail. While we know that in some of us there are failings,
yet I do think there are at least some cases among us in which it is just the lack of that intense
determination which holds us back.
It requires some strength and bigness to put oneself in the attitude towards the work
which the Master Himself adopts, because, in addition to any defect of our own, we have the
whole pressure of the thought of the world against us. Madame Blavatsky gave us the fullest
warning in the beginning about both these difficulties. She writes:
As soon as anyone pledges himself as a Probationer, certain occult effects ensue. The first
is the throwing outward of everything latent in the nature of the man-- his faults, habits,
qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or indifferent. For instance, if a man be vain or
a sensualist, or ambitious. . . these vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto
successfully concealed or repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will
have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.
On the other hand, if he be good, generous, chaste and abstemious, or has any virtue
latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest. . . . This is an
immutable law in the domain of the occult.1
1 The Secret Doctrine, Vol.5, p. 417
Does the reader recall the old proverb: “Let sleeping dogs lie?” There is a world of occult
meaning in it. No man or woman knows his or her moral strength until it is tried. Thousands go
through life very respectably because they have never been put to the test. . . . One who
undertakes to try for chelaship by that very act rouses . . . every sleeping passion of his animal
nature. . . . The chela is called to face not only all the latent evil propensities of his nature, but
in addition the momentum of maleficent forces accumulated by the community and nation to
which he belongs. . . . If he is content to go along with his neighbours and be almost as they
are-- perhaps a little better or somewhat worse than the average-- no one may give him a
thought. But let it be known that he has been able to detect the hollow mockery of social life,
its hypocrisy. selfishness, sensuality, cupidity and other bad features, and has determined to
lift himself up to a higher level, at once he is hated, and every bad, bigoted or malicious nature
sends at him a current of opposing will-power. 1
1 Five Years of Theosophy, Second Edition, p. 35.
Those who drift along with the current of evolution, and will reach this stage in the very
far distant future, will find it much easier, for popular opinion at that period will be in harmony
with these ideals. We have now, however, to resist what the Christian would call temptation,
the steady pressure of opinion from without, for millions of people all round us are thinking
personal thoughts. To make a stand against these needs a real effort, true courage and
perseverance. We must doggedly keep to the task, and though we may fail again and again we
must not lose heart, but get up and go on.
The astral and mental bodies of an aspirant ought to be continually exhibiting four or five
big and glowing emotions-- love, devotion, sympathy and intellectual aspiration among them.
But instead of a few great feelings vibrating splendidly and clearly with fine colour, one
generally sees the astral body spotted over with red and brown and grey and black vortices,
often a hundred or more. They are somewhat like a mass of warts on a physical body,
preventing the skin from being sensitive as it should be. The candidate must see to it that
these are removed, and that the usual tangle of petty emotions is entirely combed away.
PROBATION
OUT of the ranks of earnest students and workers of the kind I have already described,
the Master has on many occasions selected His pupils. But before He definitely accepts them
He takes special precautions to assure Himself that they are really the kind of people whom He
can draw into intimate contact with Himself; and that is the object of the stage called
Probation. When He thinks of a man as a possible pupil, He usually asks one who is already
closely linked with Him to bring the candidate to Him astrally. There is not generally much
ceremony connected with this step; the Master gives a few words of advice, tells the new pupil
what will be expected of him, and often, in His gracious way, He may find some reason to
congratulate him on the work that he has already accomplished.
He then makes a living image of the pupil-- that is to say, He moulds out of mental,
astral and etheric matter an exact counterpart of the causal, mental, astral and etheric bodies
of the neophyte, and keeps that image at hand, so that He may look at it periodically. Each
image is magnetically attached to the person whom it represents, so that every variation of
thought and feeling in him is accurately reproduced in it by sympathetic vibration, and thus by
a single glance at the image the Master can see at once whether during the period since He
last looked at it there has been any sort of disturbance in the bodies which it represents--
whether the man has been losing his temper, or allowing himself to be a prey to impure
feelings, worry, depression, or anything of the kind. It is only after He has seen that for a
considerable time no serious excitement has taken place in the vehicles represented by the
image, that He will admit the pupil into near relation with Himself.
When the pupil is accepted he must be drawn into a unity with his Master closer than
anything we can imagine or understand; the Master wants to blend his aura with His own, so
that through it His forces may be constantly acting without special attention on His part. But a
relation so intimate as this cannot act in one direction only; if among the vibrations of the pupil
there are some which would cause disturbance in the astral and mental bodies of the Adept as
they react upon Him, such union would be impossible. The prospective pupil would have to
wait until he had rid himself of those vibrations. A probationary pupil is not necessarily better
than other people who are not on probation; he is only more suitable in certain ways for the
Master' s work, and it is advisable to subject him to the test of time, for many people, swept
upwards by enthusiasm, appear at first to be most promising and eager to serve, but
unfortunately become tired after a while and slip back. The candidate must conquer any
emotional failings that he may have, and go on steadily working until he becomes sufficiently
calm and pure. When for quite a long time there has been no serious upheaval in the living
image, the Master may feel that the time has come when He can usefully draw the pupil nearer
to Him.
We must not think of the living image as recording only defects or disturbances. It
mirrors the whole condition of the pupil' s astral and mental consciousness, so it should record
much of benevolence and joyousness, and should radiate forth peace on earth and goodwill to
men. Never forget that not only a passive but also an active goodness is always a prerequisite
for advancement. To do no harm is already much; but remember that it is written of our Great-
Exemplar that He went about doing good. And when the Lord Buddha was asked to epitomize
the whole of His teaching in one verse, He began: “Cease to do evil,” but immediately He
continued: “Learn to do good.”
If a pupil on probation does something unusually good, for the moment the Master
flashes a little more attention on him, and if He sees fit He may send a wave of encouragement
of some sort, or He may put some work in the pupil' s way and see how he does it. Generally,
however, he delegates that task to some of His senior pupils.. We are supposed to offer
opportunities to the candidate, but to do so is a serious responsibility. If the person takes the
opportunity, all is well; but if he does not, it counts as a bad mark against him. We should
often like to give opportunities to people, but we hesitate, because although if they take them
it will do them much good, if they do not take them it will be a little harder to do so next time.
It will be seen, then, that the link of the pupil on probation with his Master is chiefly one
of observation and perhaps occasional use of the pupil. It is not the custom of the Adepts to
employ special or sensational tests, and in general, when an adult is put on probation, he is
left to follow the ordinary course of his life, and the way in which the living image reproduces
his response to the trials and problems of the day gives quite sufficient indication of his
character and progress. When from this the Master concludes that the person will make a
satisfactory disciple, He will draw him nearer and accept him. Sometimes a few weeks is
sufficient to determine this; sometimes the period stretches into years.
YOUNGER PROBATIONERS
Because the time is exceptional many young people have been put on probation in recent
years, and their parents and the older members of The Society have sometimes wondered how
it is that, notwithstanding their own sincere sacrifices and labours, often extending over
twenty, thirty or even forty years, they are passed over and the young people are chosen. The
explanation is simple.
It has been your karma to work all this time preparing yourself and preparing the way for
the coming of the World-Teacher; and just because you are good old members you have
attracted some of the souls who have been working up to a high level of development in
previous incarnations, so that they have been born to you as children; and you must not be
surprised if you sometimes find that those who in the physical body are your children are in
other and higher worlds far older in development than you are. If a boy or a girl suddenly
enters into close relations with a Master-- such relations as you have hardly ventured to think
of for yourself, even after many years of meditation and hard work-- do not be astonished.
Your child may be capable of soaring far beyond you; but it is just because he has that
capacity that his birth and education have been entrusted to you, who have been studying and
working so long on Theosophical lines. In the course of that study you should have learnt to be
the ideal parent-- the kind of parent required for the body of an advanced ego. Instead of
being perplexed or surprised, you should rejoice with exceeding great joy that you have been
found worthy to train the physical footsteps of one who shall be among the Saviours of the
world.
You may wonder, perhaps, how mere children can appreciate the honour which comes to
them, can grasp the splendour and glory of it all. Do not forget that it is the ego who is
initiated, the ego who is taken as a pupil. True, he must obtain such control over his lower
vehicles that they will be to a certain considerable extent an expression of him, so that at least
they will not get in the way of the work which has to be done; but it is he, the ego, who has to
do that work and to make that development, and you do not know how much of it he may
have already achieved in previous births. Many of those who are coming into incarnation just
now are highly evolved souls; it is precisely of such advanced egos that the great group of
disciples who will stand around the World-Teacher must be constituted. Those who become
pupils early in this life may well have been pupils for many years in a previous life, and the
greatest privilege that we elder people can have is that we find ourselves associated with these
young ones, for through them we can further the Lord' s work on earth by training them to do
it more perfectly.
In the Chapter on “Our Relation to Children” in The Hidden Side of Things I have dealt at
considerable length with what is necessary for the training of children, that they may preserve
all that is best in what they bring from the past and may develop into full flower the many
beautiful characteristics of their nature, which are so generally, alas, ruthlessly destroyed by
uncomprehending elders. There I have spoken among other things of the devastating effects of
fear induced in children by roughness and cruelty; but on that subject I should like to add here
some mention of an experience which illustrated the unspeakably terrible results which
sometimes follow in its wake. Parents who have children of an age to be sent to school cannot
be too careful and searching in their inquiries before they entrust those children to an
instructor, lest ineradicable harm be done to the little ones for whom they are responsible.
EFFECT OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN
Some time ago a very striking instance of the calamity which may in certain cases be
brought about by such brutality came prominently before my notice. I had the very great
honour of being present at the Initiation of one of our younger members, the Initiator on that
occasion being the Lord Maitreya Himself. In the course of the ceremonial the candidate, as
usual, had to reply to many questions dealing largely with the manner in which help can best
be given in certain difficult or unusual cases, and a special interrogation was added as to
whether he forgave and could help a certain man who had treated him with terrible harshness
and cruelty in early childhood.
The Initiator made an image of an aura with the most wonderfully delicate little puffs or
touches or shoots of lovely colour, of light playing over its surface, as it were peeping out of it,
and then drawing in again, and said: “Those are the seeds of the highest and noblest qualities
of mankind-- fragile, delicate as gossamer, to be developed only in an atmosphere of deepest,
purest love, without one touch of fear or shrinking. He who, being otherwise ready, can unfold
and strengthen them fully may reach Adeptship in that same life. That was the fate we had
hoped for you, that as a great Adept you should have stood beside me when I come to your
physical plane ; but those to whom I entrusted you (because they offered you to my service
even before birth) allowed you to fall into the hands of this person, who was so utterly
unworthy of such a trust. This was your aura before the blight of his wickedness fell upon you.
Now see what his cruelty made of you.”
Then the aura changed and twisted about horribly, and when it was still again all the
beautiful little shoots had disappeared, and in their place were innumerable little scars, and the
Lord explained that the harm done could not be cancelled in the present life, and said: “You
will still help me when I come, and I hope that in this life you will attain Arhatship; but for the
final consummation we must wait awhile. In our eyes there is no greater crime than thus to
check the progress of a soul.”
As the candidate saw this aura writhe and harden, saw all its fair promise ruthlessly
destroyed by the brutality of this man, he felt again for a moment what he had to a great
extent forgotten-- the agony of the small boy sent away from home, the ever-hovering fear
and shrinking, the incredulous horror, the feeling of flaming outrage from which there is no
escape or redress, the sickening sense of utter helplessness in the grasp of a cruel tyrant, the
passionate resentment at his wicked injustice, with no hope, no foothold anywhere in the
abyss, no God to whom to appeal; and seeing this in his mind, I who watched understood
something of the terrible tragedy of childhood, and why its effects are so far-reaching.
It is not only when approaching Adeptship that this most loathsome sin of cruelty to
children checks progress. All the new and higher qualities which the Aryan race should now be
unfolding show themselves in light and delicate buds of a similar nature, though at a lower
level than those described above. In thousands of cases these are ruthlessly crushed out by
the insensate ferocity of parent or teacher, or repressed by the brutal bullying of bigger boys at
a boarding-school; and thus many good people remain at the same level through several
incarnations, while their tormentors fall back into lower races. There are certainly many egos
coming into incarnation who, although they fall far short of the great heights of Initiation, are
nevertheless unfolding rapidly, and need now to add to their characters some of these further
and more delicate developments; and for the advancement intended for them also brutality
would be fatal.
I had not heard, until the occasion mentioned above, that the last life in which Adeptship
is attained must have absolutely perfect surroundings in childhood; but the appropriateness of
the idea is obvious when once it is put before us. That is probably one reason why so few
students gain Adeptship in European bodies, for we are much behind the rest of the world in
that particular. It is at any rate abundantly clear that nothing but evil can ever follow from this
ghastly custom of cruelty. Our members should certainly work wherever possible for its
suppression, and should be, as I said in the beginning, most especially careful to make certain
that no children for whom they are in any way responsible shall be in any danger from this
particular form of crime.
EFFECTS OF IRRITABILITY
Irritability is a common difficulty; as I have already explained, to be irritable is a thing
which is likely enough to happen to anyone living in this present civilization, where people are
always very highly strung. We live to a large extent in a civilization of torturing noises; and
above all things noise jars the nerves and causes irritation. The experience of going down into
the city and returning home feeling quite shattered and tired is a common one for sensitive
people. Many other things are contributory, but principally the weariness is due to the constant
noise, and the pressure of so many astral bodies vibrating at different rates, and all excited
and disturbed by trifles. It makes it very difficult to avoid irascibility-- especially for the pupil,
whose bodies are more highly strung and sensitive than those of the ordinary man.
Of course, this petulance is somewhat superficial; it does not penetrate deeply; but it is
better to avoid even a superficial peevishness as far as possible, because its effects last so
much longer than we usually realize. If there is a heavy storm, it is the wind that first stirs the
waves; but the waves will continue to swell long after the wind has died down. That is the
effect produced on water, which is comparatively heavy; but the matter of the astral body is far
finer than water, and the vibrations set going penetrate much more deeply, and therefore
produce a more lasting effect. Some slight, unpleasant, temporary feeling, which passes out of
mind in ten minutes, perhaps, may yet produce an effect on the astral body lasting for forty-
eight hours. The vibrations do not settle down again for a considerable period of time.
When such a fault as this is known, it can most effectually be removed not by focusing
attention upon it, but by endeavouring to develop the opposite virtue. One way of dealing with
it is to set one' s thought steadfastly against it, but there is no doubt that this course of action
arouses opposition in the mental or astral elemental, so that often a better method is to try to
develop consideration for others, based of course fundamentally on one' s love towards them.
A man who is full of love and consideration will not allow himself to speak or even to think
irritably towards them. If the man can be filled with that idea the same result will be attained
without exciting opposition from the elementals.
SELFISHNESS
There are many other forms of selfishness that can delay the pupil' s progress very
seriously. Laziness is one of these. I have seen a person enjoying himself very much with a
book, who did not like to leave it in order to be punctual; another perhaps writes very badly,
careless of the inconvenience and the damage to eyes and temper of those who have to read
his calligraphy. Little negligences tend to make one less sensitive to high influences, to make
life untidy and ugly for other persons, and to destroy self-control and efficiency. Efficiency and
punctuality are essential, if satisfactory work is to be done. Many people are inefficient; when a
piece of work is given to them, they do not finish it thoroughly, but make all kinds of excuses;
or when they are asked for some information, they do not know how to find it. People differ
much in this respect. We may ask a question of someone, and he will answer: “I don't know”;
but another will say: “Well, I don' t know”, but I will go and find out,” and he returns with the
required information. In the same way one person goes to do a thing, and comes back and
says he could not do it; but another holds on until it is done.
Yet in all good work the pupil must always think of the benefit that will result to others
and of the opportunity to serve the Master in these matters-- which even when they are small
materially are great in spiritual value-- not of the good karma resulting to himself, which would
be only another and very subtle form of self-centredness. Remember how the Christ put it:
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done It unto me.”
Other subtle effects of the same kind are to be seen in depression and jealousy, and
aggressive assertion of one' s rights. An Adept has said: “Think less about your rights and
more about your duties.” There are some occasions in dealing with the outside world when the
pupil might find it necessary gently to state what he needs, but amongst his fellow-pupils there
are no such things as rights, but only opportunities. If a man feels annoyed, he begins to
project from himself aggressive feelings; he may not go so far as actual hatred, but he is
creating a dull glow in his astral body and affecting the mental body as well.
WORRY
Similar disturbances are frequently produced in the mental body, and are equally
disastrous in their effects. If a man allows himself to be greatly worried over some problem,
and turns it over and over again in his mind without reaching any conclusion, he has thereby
caused something like a storm in his mental body. Owing to the exceeding fineness of the
vibrations at this level, the word storm only partially expresses the reality; we should in some
ways come nearer to the effect produced if we thought of it as a sore place in the mental body,
as an irritation produced by friction. We sometimes encounter argumentative people, people
who must argue about everything, and apparently love the exercise so much that they scarcely
care on which side of the problem they are engaged. A person of that sort has his mental body
in a condition of perpetual inflammation, and the inflammation is liable on very slight
provocation to break out at any moment into an actual open sore. For such an one there is no
hope of any kind of occult progress until he has brought balance and common sense to bear on
this diseased condition.
Fortunately for us, the good emotions persist even longer than the evil, because they
work in the finer part of the astral body; the effect of a feeling of strong love or devotion
remains in the astral body long after the occasion that caused it has been forgotten. It is
possible, though unusual, to have two sets of vibrations going on strongly in the astral body at
the same time-- for example, love and anger. At the moment of feeling intense anger a man
would not be likely to have any strong affectionate feeling, unless the anger were noble
indignation; in that case the after results would go on side by side, but one at a much higher
level than the other, and therefore persisting longer.
LAUGHTER
It is very natural for boys and girls to wish to enjoy themselves, to be merry, to read and
to hear amusing things, and to laugh at them; that is quite right, and it does no harm. If
people could see the vibrations set up by jovial, kindly laughter they would realize at once that
while the astral body is disturbed to some extent, it is the same thing as shaking up the liver in
riding; it actually does good, not harm. But if the results of some of the less pleasant stories
that foul-minded people are in the habit of telling were visible to them they would realize a
ghastly difference; such thoughts are altogether evil, and the forms produced by them remain
clinging for a long time to the astral body, and attract all kinds of loathsome entities. Those
approaching the Masters must be utterly free from this coarseness, as well as from all that is
boisterous and rough; and the younger must constantly be on their guard against any relapse
into childishness or silliness.
There is sometimes a tendency towards inane giggling, which must be avoided at all
costs, as it has a very bad effect on the astral body. It weaves round it a web of grey-brown
threads, very unpleasant to look upon, which forms a layer which hinders the entrance of good
influences. It is a danger against which young people should sedulously guard themselves. Be
as happy and as joyous as you can; the Master likes to see it, and it will help you on your path.
But never for a moment let your joyousness be tinged by any sort of roughness or rudeness,
never let your laughter become a boisterous guffaw; never let it, on the other hand,
degenerate into silly giggling.
There is a definite line of demarcation in this, as in other matters, between what is
harmless and what may easily become harmful. The most certain method of determining it is
to consider whether the amusement passes beyond the point of delicacy and good taste. The
moment that the laughter oversteps these-- the moment that there is in it the least touch of
boisterousness, the moment that it ceases to be perfect in its refinement, we are passing on to
dangerous ground. The inner side of that distinction is that so long as the ego is fully in control
of his astral body, all is well; as soon as he loses control, the laughter becomes vacuous and
meaningless-- the horse is, as it were, running away with its rider. An astral body thus left
unchecked is at the mercy of any passing influence, and may easily be affected by most
undesirable thoughts and feelings. See to it also that your mirth is ever pure and clean-- never
tinged for a moment with a malicious delight in the suffering or discomfiture of another. If a
mortifying accident should happen to someone, do not stand there laughing idly at the
ridiculous side of the incident, but rush forward at once to help and console. Loving-kindness
and helpfulness must be always your most prominent characteristics.
IDLE WORDS
A clairvoyant who can see the effect upon the higher bodies of the various undesirable
emotions finds no difficulty in understanding how important it is that they should he controlled.
But because most of us do not see the result we are liable to forget it, and allow ourselves to
become careless. The same thing is true of the effect produced by casual or thoughtless
remarks. The Christ in His last incarnation on earth is reported to have said that for every idle
word that men shall speak, they shall give account on the day of judgment. That sounds a
cruel thing to say, and if the orthodox view of judgment were correct, it would indeed be unjust
and abominable. He did not mean in the least that every idle word spoken would condemn a
man to eternal torture-- there is no such thing as that; but we know that every word and every
thought has its karma, its result, and when foolish things are repeated again and again, it
makes an atmosphere round the person which does keep out good influences. To avoid this,
constant attention is required. It would he a superhuman ideal to expect a person never to
forget himself for a moment; but disciples are after all trying to become superhuman, because
the Master is beyond man. If the pupil could live the perfect life, he would himself already he
an Adept; he cannot he that yet, but if he constantly remembered his ideal he would approach
much nearer to it. Every idle word that he speaks is certainly affecting for the time his
relations with the Master; so let him watch his words with the utmost care.¹
¹See also Chapter xiv, On Right Speech.
FUSS
Especially is it necessary for the aspirant to avoid all fidgetiness or fussiness. Many an
energetic and earnest worker spoils most of his efforts and makes them of no effect by yielding
to these failings; for he sets up around him such an aura of tremulous vibrations that no
thought or feeling can pass in or out without distortion, and the very good that he sends out
takes with it a shiver that practically neutralizes it. Be absolutely accurate; but attain your
accuracy by perfect calmness, never by hurry or fuss.
Another point that it is necessary to impress upon our students is that in occultism we
always mean exactly what we say, neither more or less.
When a rule is laid down that nothing unkind or critical must be said about another, just
that is exactly what is meant-- not that when we happen to think of it we should slightly
diminish the number of unkind or critical things that we say every day, but that they must
definitely altogether cease. We are so much in the habit of hearing various ethical instructions
which no one seems to endeavour to put seriously into practice, that we have a habit of
thinking that a perfunctory assent to an idea, or an occasional feeble effort to approximate to
it, is all that religion requires of us. We must put aside that frame of mind altogether and
understand that exact and literal obedience is required when occult instruction is given,
whether by a Master or by His pupil.1
¹For additional instructions on these lines the reader is referred to Talks on the Path of
Occultism.
ACCEPTANCE
ACCOUNT OF AN ACCEPTANCE
THOUGH the acceptance of the pupil by the Master produces so great a difference in his
life, there is but little more of external ceremony attached to it than there was in the case of
probation. The following account of the acceptance of some of our young people is given for
comparison with the corresponding account of probation in the last chapter:
Going as usual to the house of our Master Kuthumi, we found the Master Morya sitting in
earnest conversation with Him. We naturally stood aside for a moment, but the Master called
us forward with His dazzling smile of welcome, and we made the customary salutation.
The first of our candidates, whom his Master had once called “an ever-glowing Love-Star,”
is so full of love for his Master that he looks upon Him as an elder Brother, and is absolutely
free and at home with Him, though he never speaks to Him without deep reverence. It is
indeed beautiful to see them together.
On this occasion our Master smiled kindly upon him and said: “Have you finally decided
that you will work under me and devote yourself to the service of humanity?” The boy replied
very earnestly that he meant to do so, and our Master continued: “I have been much pleased
with the efforts that you have made, and I hope that you will not relax them. Do not forget
under the new conditions what I told you a few months ago. Your work and your determination
have enabled me to shorten the period of your Probation, and I am pleased that you have
chosen the shortest of all roads to progress, that of bringing others with you along the Path.
Absolutely unselfish love is the strongest power in the world, but few are they who can keep it
pure from exaction or jealousy, even if it be for one object alone. Your advancement is due to
your success in keeping that flame burning ardently for several objects simultaneously. You
have done much to develop strength, but you need still more of it. You must acquire
discrimination and alertness, so that you see what is wanted at the right moment, instead of
ten minutes afterwards. Before you speak or act, think carefully what the consequences will
be. But you have done remarkably well, and I am much pleased with you.”
Then the Master laid His hand upon the head of each of the candidates separately,
saying: “I accept you as my chela according to the ancient rite.” He drew each in turn into His
aura, so that for a few moments the pupil disappeared in Him, and then emerged looking
inexpressibly happy and noble, showing forth the special characteristics of the Master as he
had never done before. When all this was over our Master said to each one: “I give you my
blessing.” And then speaking to all together: “Come with me ; I must present you in your new
character for official recognition and registration.” So He took them to the Mahachohan, who
looked them over keenly, and said: “You are very young. I congratulate you on reaching such a
position so early. See that you live up to the level which you have attained.” And He entered
their names in the imperishable record, showing them the columns opposite their names which
had still to be filled, and expressing a hope that He might soon have other entries to make for
them.
On the way back from the visit to the Mahachohan, the Master took His new pupils once
more into the cave near His house, and they watched Him dissolve into thin air the living
images of themselves which He had made a short time before. “Now that you are actually part
of me all the time,” He said, “we shall not need those any longer.”
TESTING THOUGHT
Another most valuable privilege which the accepted pupil enjoys is that of laying his
thought on any subject beside that of his Master, and comparing them. It will be readily
understood how the frequent use of this power will keep the pupil' s thought running along
noble and liberal lines-- how he will constantly be able to correct any mistakes, any tendencies
towards prejudice or lack of understanding. There may be various ways in which he can
exercise this power; my own method was always to lie down in meditation and endeavour to
reach up into the consciousness of the Master just as far as I possibly could. When I had
reached the highest point that was for the time possible to me, I suddenly turned and looked
back, as it were, upon the subject in question, and instantly received an impression of how it
appeared to the Master. It was probably very far from being a perfect impression, but at least
it showed me what He thought on the matter, as far as I was able to enter into His thought.
Care, however, must be taken that this wonderful privilege is not misused. It is given to
us as a power of ultimate reference in questions of great difficulty, or in the cases where we
have no sufficient ground for judgment, and yet have to come to some decision; but it is by no
means intended to save us the trouble of thinking, or to be applied to the decision of ordinary
everyday questions which we are perfectly competent to settle for ourselves.
Those who meditate long upon a Master and form a strong thought-image of Him, as do
the members of the Esoteric School, presently find that that thought-image is definitely vivified
by that Master, so that they receive through it an unmistakable outpouring of spiritual force.
This is as it should be; this is precisely the object of such meditation; and through it the pupil
comes to know the influence so well that he can always recognize it. There have been cases,
though they are happily rare, in which some evil entity has personated a Master in order to
deceive a student; but such an attempt can succeed only if there is in the latter some subtle
weakness, such as conceit, ambition, jealousy or selfishness, which an insidious tempter can
arouse and foster until it becomes a fatal bar to spiritual progress. Unless the roots of such
qualities are sternly and thoroughly eliminated, the aspirant is never free from the possibility of
deception; but if he be truly humble and selfless he need have no fear.
The candidate for Acceptance must necessarily watch himself closely. If he has not
received any direct hint from his Master or from some older pupil as to the special failings
which he must try to avoid, he will do his best to observe these for himself, and having once
decided upon them or been told of them, he will exercise unceasing vigilance against them. At
the same time he should be warned on no account to overdo his introspection and allow
himself to become morbid. The safest of all lines for him to take is to concentrate his attention
on the helping of others; if his mind is full of that thought he will instinctively move in the right
direction. The desire to fit himself thoroughly for that work will impel him to brush all obstacles
out of the way, so that without consciously thinking of his own development at all, he will yet
find that it is taking place.
RELAXATION
It is not expected that a pupil shall be ever actively thinking of nothing else but the
Master; but it is expected that the form of the Master shall be always in the background of his
mind, always within immediate reach, always there when needed in the vicissitudes of life. Our
minds, like bowstrings, cannot be kept always taut; reasonable relaxation and change of
thought is one of the necessities of mental health. But the pupil should be exceedingly careful
that there is no slightest tinge of impurity or unkindness about his relaxation; no thought
should ever be permitted, even for a moment, which the pupil would be ashamed that his
Master should see.
There is no harm whatever in reading a good novel for the sake of diversion; the
thought-forms engendered by it would not in any way interfere with the current of the Master'
s thought; but there are many novels full of evil insinuation, novels which bring impure
thought-forms before the mind, novels which glorify crime, and others which concentrate the
thought of their readers on the most unsavoury problems of life, or vividly depict scenes of
hatred and cruelty; all such should be rigorously avoided. In the same way, there is no harm in
taking part in or watching all ordinary games which are fairly played; but any which are rough
and boisterous, any in which any sort of cruelty is involved, any in which there is likelihood of
injury to man or beast-- all these are absolutely barred.
OTHER PRESENTATIONS
HINDU YOGA
The series of qualifications described above is at once seen to be quite in accord with
those given in At the Feet of the Master, which in turn have exactly the same framework as
those mentioned in the books ascribed in India to Shankaracharya and his followers, for the
use of candidates aiming at yoga. The term yoga, which has long been used in India, means
union, and as that is generally considered to imply union with the Divine, it is in fact unity. But
the expression refers in all the different schools of yoga in India not only to the distant goal of
union, but also to the methods of training prescribed as leading to that goal; therefore some
say that the meaning of yoga is meditation, which plays a large part in most of the systems.
It must not to be assumed, however, that meditation is the only or even the principal
means to yoga, for there have been and still are many different schools, each having its own
special methods. Professor Ernest Wood has described the seven principal schools of yoga in
Raja Yoga: The Occult Training of the Hindus, and has shown how they belong each to one of
the seven Rays, so that they must be regarded as complementary, and not as rival methods of
practice. Each great Teacher expounded a method suited to one type of ego-- a fact so well
known among the Hindus that they are always liberal and tolerant in their thought, and
consider it perfectly right for each man to follow the method which suits his temperament.
This book explains that in each school there are certain characteristics similar to those
which prevail in the teaching of our Masters; there is always a preliminary training--
accompanied by the requirement of high moral attainments-- before the candidate can enter
the Path Proper, and on reaching that Path he is always advised to seek a master or guru. In
the school of Patanjali, for example, which is the first to be treated, as it is the oldest of which
we have any written record, there are ten commandments, the first five of which are negative
(prohibiting injury to others, untruth, theft, incontinence and greed) and the second five
positive (enjoining cleanliness, contentment, effort, study and devotion).
In the preliminary course of training there are three requirements-- tapas or effort,
svadhyaya or study of one' s own nature with the aid of the Scriptures, and Ishvara-
pranidhana or devotion to God at all times; these the author compares respectively with our
three qualifications of shatsampatti or good conduct, which involves the use of the will in a
number of efforts, viveka or discrimination, which implies understanding of the true and the
false, inside and outside oneself, and vairagya or desirelessness, since personal emotions can
best be transcended by devotion. After developing these preliminary requirements the
candidate on the path uses his will to master and employ every part of his nature in a series of
steps, physical, etheric, astral, mental and beyond; and because of this the school is described
as of the first Ray, on which the use of the will predominates.
The second school of yoga is that of Shri Krishna, particularly expounded in the great
poem The Bhagavad-Gita, which has been translated with such accuracy and beauty by our
President, and also in a freer rendering by Sir Edwin Arnold under the title of The Song
Celestial. This teaches above all else the doctrine of love. The disciple Arjuna, to whom the
Guru spoke, was a great lover of mankind; according to the scripture this great soldier sank
down upon the floor of his chariot before the battle of Kurukshetra began, full of sorrow
because he loved his enemies and could not bear to injure them. The teacher Shri Krishna then
explained to him, amid much philosophical teaching, that the greatest thing in life is service,
that God Himself is the greatest server-- for He keeps the wheel of life revolving, not because
any benefit can possibly accrue to Him in consequence, but for the sake of the world-- and that
men should follow His example and work for the welfare of mankind. Many Great Ones, He
said, had reached perfection by following this path of life, by doing their duty without personal
desire. To love without ceasing is the way of the second Ray; in the Gita it is shown how this
love should be directed to men and other beings in karma yoga (the yoga by action or work)
and to God in bhakti yoga (the yoga by devotion).
Once more three preliminary teachings are given. To reach the love-wisdom a candidate
must practise devotion or reverence, inquiry or investigation, and service-- the first involving
right emotion, the second right thought and understanding, and the third right use of the will
in practical life-- which again are compared to our first three qualifications. It is particularly
interesting to notice that the Teacher says that when the candidate has prepared himself in this
triple way, “The Wise Ones, who know the essence of things, will teach you the Wisdom” -- in
other words, the aspirant will find the Masters.
The third school, that of Shankaracharya, as already mentioned, presents the
qualifications in the order in which we have them, placing viveka or discrimination first. It is
intended for those people whose temperament leads them to want to understand what they
are about-- not only what service they ought to perform, but in what way their contribution fits
into the scheme of things and the development of mankind. It must be noted that the Master
Kuthumi, in presenting these qualifications, has interpreted them all newly in the light of love.
The fourth school is that of hatha yoga. Rightly understood, this involves a severe
physical purification and training, intended to bring the body into a perfect state of health,
orderly functioning and refinement, so as to enable the ego using it to attain as much as is
possible for him in the present incarnation. To this end there are many practices, including
breathing exercises, intended to act upon the nervous system and the etheric double as well as
upon those parts of the dense body usually trained in courses of physical culture. Unfortunately
very much of what appears in the popular literature on this subject reflects only a superstitious
distortion of the real teaching, and describes various repellent forms of subjugation and
mortification of the body which were common also in Europe a few centuries ago; but in all the
Sanskrit books dealing with hatha yoga it is clearly stated that the object of the physical
practices is to bring the body into the highest state of health and efficiency.
The fifth school, denominated laya yoga, aims at awakening the higher faculties of man
through a knowledge of kundalini, the “serpent power” which in most people lies latent at the
base of the spine, and of the seven chakras or force-centres through which the awakened
power is guided. Of these centres and this force I have already written to some extent in The
Inner Life and The Hidden Side of Things. I have now gathered this material together, made
some additions to it, and published a monograph on the subject with large coloured
illustrations of the seven chakras and of the courses of the various pranas or streams of
vitality. (See the author' s book The Chakras , issued by The Theosophical Publishing House,
Adyar, Madras.) The methods of this and the previous school are not, however, recommended
to Western students, or indeed to anyone who is not specially directed by a competent teacher
to practise them. They are suitable only for those who have the Oriental physical heredity, and
can live as simply and peacefully as do some Orientals; for others they are not only unlikely to
be successful, but are distinctly dangerous to health, and even to life. I have known many sad
cases of disease and madness to result from attempts on these lines, especially in America.
The sixth school is that of bhakti or devotion. This is also taught to a large extent in The
Bhagavad-Gita; indeed, we find it in every religion among those true devotees who put their
trust entirely in the Divine-- who do not pray for personal favours, but are quite convinced that
God is perfect master of His world, that He knows what He is doing, and that therefore all is
well; they are therefore more than content, they are thrilled with ecstasy, if they can but have
the opportunity and the privilege to serve and obey Him in any way.
MANTRAS
Lastly we have the seventh school, which in India is called mantra yoga . It may be well
to expound its principle here at somewhat greater length than the others, for the Ray of which
it is one of the principal expressions is just now becoming dominant in the world, and is playing
a large and increasing part among us in both East and West. Two great examples of its method
are to be seen in the work of the Liberal Catholic Church and Co-Masonry, in which our Masters
are keenly interested; indeed, They are employing them with great benefit to mankind, and for
the rapid advancement on the Path of those who take active part in these movements.
The word mantra is Sanskrit, and is practically equivalent to our word charm or spell. The
majority of mantras used in India for good purposes are verses from the Vedas, pronounced
with intention according to the traditional methods, which are the outcome of practical occult
knowledge. There are also many mantras employed by men who follow the Tantras, and those
are just as often used for evil as for good; so we find afloat in India a great number of them,
both desirable and undesirable. If we are to classify them from our Western point of view, I
should say that there are five main types of these mantras :
ASSOCIATION OF THOUGHT
There are mantras which work by association. Certain forms of words bring with them
definite ideas, and quite change the current of our thoughts and feelings. An example of this is
the National Anthem. The tune is simple and strong, but hardly of high rank as a melody; the
words, regarded merely as poetry, have in themselves no especial merit. If it were to us but
one song among many other songs, it would probably attract but little attention. But our
association with it is that of loyalty to the King, and through him to the Spiritual King whose
Representative he is; and so powerful is this association that as soon as we hear that strain we
straighten ourselves up instinctively and pour out our loyalty and goodwill towards the Ruler of
the land. And this evokes a definite response, for, according to the law, force so outpoured
unselfishly must call down a corresponding descent of power from on high. This response
comes through certain types of Angels connected with the work of the first Ray, and the
attention of these is attracted whenever the National Anthem is sung, and they pour out their
blessing upon and through the people whose loyalty has been thereby stimulated.
Another example, though far less powerful, of a similar type of mantra is “The Voice that
breathed o' er Eden”; we cannot hear that hymn without thinking strongly of a wedding, and
all the festive feeling of goodwill usually connected with such a function. Various Christmas
hymns and carols also invoke in our minds a very definite stream of thought. The war-cries
which played so prominent a part in the battles of mediaeval times were mantras of this type.
There are a number of such forms which instantly call up corresponding ideas, and they
produce results because of their associations, and not because of anything inherent in
themselves.
ANGELIC CO-OPERATION
There are certain mantras which work by agreement or by covenant. Most religions
appear to have some examples of this type. The great Muhammadan call from the minaret
partakes of this character, although it has also something about it of the type which we have
last considered. It is a declaration of faith: “There is no God but God” (or, as some have
translated it, “There is nothing but God,” which is an eternal truth) “and Muhammad is the
Prophet of God.” It is interesting to see the effect produced upon the people by these words. It
is far more than the mere thought of their meaning, for it calls up in those who hear it a fiery
faith, a fanatical outburst of devotion, which is quite beautiful in its way, and very
characteristic of Muhammadanism. This might be a mere instance of association, but for the
fact that Angels of a certain type are evoked by the call, and it is their action which causes
much of the enthusiasm which is exhibited.
It is perhaps in the Christian religion that we find the best examples of this third type of
mantra, as those who know anything of the Services of the Church will realize. The greatest of
them all is Hoc est Corpus Meum, “This is My Body”; for the Christ Himself has made a
covenant with His Church that whenever that call is uttered, whenever those words are
pronounced in any language by one of His duly ordained Priests, He will respond thereto. But
this power is given under conditions, given only to those who are prepared by another mantra
of the same type to receive it-- a mantra also prescribed by Christ Himself-- the words
“Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”
The power which with these words He gave to His disciples just before He left them has
been handed down with the same words in an unbroken chain for nigh two thousand years,
and constitutes what is called the Apostolic Succession. Whenever a Priest who has been duly
ordained in that Succession pronounces with intention those other words “This is My Body,” a
certain wonderful change is thereby brought about in the bread over which he speaks them, so
that though its outward appearance remains the same its higher principles or counterparts are
superseded by the very life of the Christ Himself, so that it becomes just as truly His vehicle as
was the body which He wore in Palestine.
There is no doubt of the working of this mantra “This is My Body,” for its action can he
seen to-day by those who have eyes to see. Lord Tennyson tells us in The Idylls of the King
that Galahad, describing the celebration of the Eucharist, said:
And just so any clairvoyant who watches the offering of that same Holy Sacrifice to-day
may see the counterpart of the bread flash out into a line of living light when the same sacred
mantra is spoken. All the branches of the Christian Church-- the Roman Catholic, the Greek
orthodox, the Anglican and the Liberal Catholic Churches-- that celebrate the Holy Eucharist at
all in the form which was laid down by the Christ, use those Words of Institution as part of
their Liturgy, and in all of them that wonderful result is produced. All these branches of the
Church, too, invoke the Angelic Hosts to assist in the Service, and that is done not only by a
particular form of words, but also (when the Service is sung) by a particular form of music, by
an arrangement of sounds which has persisted with but slight variation from an early period in
the history of the Church. The Angels of a special type take those words as a call, and at once
attend to play their part in the Service which is to be held. 1
1 For a full account of the working of this most marvellous mantra, see The Science of
the Sacraments.
¹ The literal rendering of this celebrated versicle into English is: “Om: We adore the
resplendent glory of Savitri our Lord; may He inspire our devotion and understanding.” But in
the course of ages it has come to imply to the devout Hindu very much more than is conveyed
by the mere words.
A Sanskrit scholar tells me that, while the ordinary word for the sun is Surya, this
especial title Savitri is used always to imply the Sun (that is to say the Solar Logos) as inspirer
or encourager. It seems to have a signification closely allied to the word Paraclete, which is
often, but very unsatisfactorily, translated as the Comforter. (See The Hidden Side of Christian
Festivals, p. 2O2). My friend also emphasizes the fact that this is not a prayer to the Logos to
give us wisdom or devotion, but the expression of an earnest aspiration and resolve that His
influence shall so act upon us as to call out and to strengthen that which already exists within
us.
When the Buddhist Tisarana is chanted the Angels that come are those especially
associated with the Yellow Robe, and they bring with them a wonderful peace and joyousness,
for although they are so peaceful they are amongst the most joyous in the world.
When we speak of Angels as “appearing” we must remember all the dimensions of space.
They have not to “come” in the sense of starting from somewhere far away-- from a far-distant
heaven, for example. I do not know whether I shall make the matter hopelessly puzzling if I
put it that the great forces representing the Logos manifest in those particular forms in answer
to the Invocation. They are always there, always ready, but they turn themselves outward in
response to the call.
That is the whole history of that sort of prayer and its answer. We have only to think
strongly of an idea, and that which ensouls it or represents it will manifest itself to us. Any
strong thought of devotion brings an instant response; the Universe would be dead if it did not.
It is in the natural law that the response must come; the appeal and the reply are like the
obverse and the reverse of a coin; the answer is only the other side of the request, just as we
say of karma that the effect is the other side of the cause. There is a wonderful unity in
Nature, but people enfold themselves so thickly in their personalities that they do not know
anything about it. It is only a question of opening ourselves up. One can quite easily see that
when we are able to yield ourselves to nature, we can practically command nature, because by
the attitude we take we can call forth its forces, and everything works with us. This is clearly
explained in Light on the Path. We must recognize the forces of nature, and open ourselves up
to them; and because these powers are flowing with us, everything that before was difficult
becomes so much easier.
There is yet another section of the whole subject of mantras as to which I myself have
very little information. There is the power not only of sound but of words as such, as numbers,
and even of letters. We do not trouble about these things in modern days, but in the Sanskrit
and also in the Hebrew alphabet every letter has its assigned value, not only of number, but
also of power and colour. I have known clairvoyants who see ordinary Roman letters as printed
in our books as each of a different colour, A being always red, let us say, B always blue, C
yellow, D green, and so on. I have never had any such experience myself; I suppose my mind
does not work in that way. Similarly there are psychics who always see the days of the week as
of different colours. That is not my experience; I am not sensitive in that way either, nor do I
understand what is meant. That may perhaps be connected with astrological influences; I do
not know. This aspect of things is also connected with mantras, and there is a school of
mantrists who give to each letter a numerical value, quite independent of its position in the
alphabet; and they will tell you that if they add up the values which they assign to the letters
of a given word or sentence, and so arrive at a certain total, and if the same total can be made
by adding the letters of another word or group of words, the same mantric effect will be
produced by the two sentences. But about that I know nothing.
The mantra is usually a short, strong formula, and when for any purpose we want to
produce a decided effect, that is the kind of form that our adjuration must take. If we wish to
affect people profoundly and rapidly when speaking to them, we must use sentences which are
short and strong, not long and rambling; they must follow the line of the military command or
of the mantra; and there must be a definite climax. Suppose we wish to help a person who is
frightened. We may formulate within ourselves such words as: “I am strong, strong, strong; I
am part of God, and God is strength, so I am full of that strength”; and the repetition of the
idea will bring the divine strength within us to the surface, and we shall be able to inspire
others with our courage. In this as in all other lines, knowledge is power; if we wish to work to
the best advantage we must understand, and if we wish to understand we must study. The
wise man knows how to live in peace and happiness, because his life is in harmony with God' s
life. Comprehending all, he sympathizes with all; he has cast selfishness behind him for ever,
and he lives but to help and to bless.
CHAPTER VIII
FAILURES
In such an organization there should surely be no possibility of failure or trouble of any
sort; and yet, because humanity is frail, and because not all members of this great
Brotherhood are yet Supermen, failures do sometimes occur, although they are very rare.
“Great ones fall back even from the threshold, unable to sustain the weight of their
responsibility, unable to pass on,” as is said in Light on the Path , and only the attainment of
Adeptship ensures perfect safety. The Initiator tells the candidate that now he has entered
upon the stream he is safe for ever; but although that is so, it is still possible for him to delay
his progress to a most serious extent, if he yields to any of the temptations that still beset his
path. To be safe for ever is usually taken to betoken the certainty of passing onward with the
present life-wave-- of not being left behind at the “day of judgment” which comes in the
middle of the fifth Round, when the Christ who has descended into matter decides what souls
can and what souls cannot be carried on to final attainment in this chain of worlds. There is no
eternal condemnation; it is, as the Christ said, simply aeonian; there are some who cannot go
in this age or dispensation, but they will follow along in the next, precisely as a child who is too
dull to succeed in this year' s class will drift comfortably along in next year' s, and will probably
even be at the head of it.
When the sad and terrible thing does occur-- when there is a failure of any sort among
Initiates, a thrill of pain runs through the whole of that vast consciousness, for the separation
of one from the rest is of the nature of a veritable surgical operation, tearing the heartstrings
of all. Only with the uttermost regret does the Brotherhood ever thus sever a member from
itself, and even when it does so the erring Brother is not finally cut off, however far he may
stray. He will be brought back again some time, somehow, somewhere; there is a link that
cannot be broken, although we know little of the weary road of trial and suffering that he must
tread before he can again weld it together with the rest.
The Voice of the Silence remains within him, and though he leave the path utterly, yet
one day it will resound, and rend him asunder, and separate his passions from his divine
possibilities. Then with pain and desperate cries from the deserted lower self, he will return.¹
¹Light on the Path, Part I, Rule 21.
Others there be who fall away only for a short time, through some outburst of such
feeling as is quite impossible for the Brotherhood to endure. Then, just as a Master may drop a
temporary veil between Himself and an erring disciple, so the Brotherhood finds it necessary to
make for a time a sort of cyst round one of its members who fails it. The whole force of the
Brotherhood is turned upon one who is failing in that way, so that, if it be at all possible They
may prevent him from overstepping the boundary. But sometimes, even in spite of all the
strength which the Brotherhood is permitted by the law of karma to use, a member still
declines to give up his petty personal attitude of supposed injury, or offence, or whatever it
may be; then They must encyst him for a while until he learn better.
The formula of Initiation has been unchanged throughout the ages, yet there is a certain
elasticity about it. The Initiator' s Charge to the candidate is always the same so far as the first
part of it goes, but almost invariably there is a second and personal part which consists
practically of advice to the particular candidate who is going through. This is usually called the
private part of the Charge. I have also seen instances in which an image is made of the
candidate' s worst enemy and he is asked how he would deal with him, whether he is fully
prepared to forgive him absolutely, and whether he would help even one so low as this if it
came in his way. In some cases also questions are asked as to the work already done by the
candidate, and those who have been helped by him are sometimes invited to come forward
and bear witness. An account of the ceremony is subjoined.
SONSHIP
We have already spoken of the close relation between an accepted pupil and his Master;
all the time this intimacy has been steadily growing, and it usually happens that when the pupil
is approaching the portal of Initiation the Master considers that the time is ripe for Him to draw
the chela into a still deeper union. He is then called the Son of the Master, and the link is such
that not only the lower mind but also the ego in the causal body of the pupil is enfolded within
that of the Adept, and the latter can no longer draw a veil to cut off the neophyte.
A wise Frenchman once said: “Dans tous les amours, il y a un qui aime et un qui se laisse
être aimé.” This is profoundly true in nine cases out of ten in human love. Often the reason for
it is that one of the two souls concerned is greater and more developed than the other, and
therefore capable of a far deeper love; the younger soul appreciates that wealth of affection,
and returns it to the extent of his capacity, but his best effort falls far short of the wonderful
gift poured out so easily and naturally by his elder. Always that must be the case with regard to
the Master and His pupil.
Another point. The affection with which we meet in ordinary life is not infrequently
unstable, fluctuating, capable of ready discouragement; it may be alienated by coldness,
unkindness, lack of response; it may even be changed into dislike if its object violates our
canons of conduct, or acts in some way that horrifies or disgusts us. But there is a truer and a
deeper affection that nothing can shake-- a love which recks nothing of response, which is
utterly unaffected by neglect, indifference or even unworthiness on the part of its object--
which would indeed feel bitter anguish and regret if that object committed a crime or disgraced
himself in any way, but would never for a moment decrease in strength, would lose not a
single degree of its fervency whatever the loved one might do.
Of that nature is the love of God for His world; of that nature also must be the love of the
Master for those to whom He gives the ineffable privilege of Sonship. He trusts them wholly;
He voluntarily resigns the power to separate them from Himself, because only by that utter
and unbreakable union with them is He enabled to share with them His own nature to the very
fullest extent of their power of response-- only by this sacrifice of Himself can He give them
the utmost which a pupil can receive from a Master.
Thus it may truly be said that He puts Himself at the mercy of His pupil. Just think of the
awful responsibility which that throws upon us!
Rare though it be, such love is found sometimes among men in this our physical world
too; but when it exists, it has always that same quality and that same result; it places the
higher in the hands of the lower, so that the supremest love is ever also the supremest
sacrifice. Yet this utter sacrifice, this utmost resignation of the self brings with it a keener joy
than aught else on earth can confer, for such love alone is god-like, such self-surrender bears
the man into the very heart of Christ. Indeed is it true that such “love shall cover the multitude
of sins,” ¹ that “her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.”2
¹ I Peter, iv, 8.
2 Luke, vii, 47.
There is a beautiful reference to this state of closest union in Light on the Path, where it
is written: “ ` My peace I give unto you' can only be said by the Master to the beloved disciples
who are as Himself.” And so these are they who have the inestimable privilege of being able to
pass on that peace to others in all its fullness. Any accepted pupil of the Master has the right
and the duty to bless in His Name, and a splendid outpouring of the Master' s power will
assuredly follow his effort to do so. Especially should he give that blessing mentally whenever
he enters a house: “May the blessing of the Master rest on this house and on all who live
therein.” But the Son of the Master can give the very touch of His intimate presence, a fuller
and a greater peace. He who is a Son of the Master either is or soon will be a member of the
Great White Brotherhood also; and that, as we have said, gives the power to wield an even
greater blessing, though both are appropriate, each in its several place.
I well remember giving each of these on different occasions to a great Angel of the
neighbourhood with whom I have the honour to be well acquainted. Passing close to his
territories in a vessel I gave him once as a greeting the full blessing of my Master, and it was
indeed beautiful to see the way in which he received it, bowing profoundly and showing his
appreciation by a lovely soft glow of holiness and uttermost devotion. Another day under
similar circumstances I gave him the blessing of the Brotherhood, and instantly every power of
that great Angel flashed out in glad response, and the whole of his territory lit up. It was as
though a soldier had leapt to attention, as though everything, not only within himself but in all
the thousands of minor creatures working under him, had suddenly been vivified and raised to
its highest power. All nature instantly responded. You see, my Master, however deeply
reverenced by him, is not his Master, but my King is his King, for there is but One.
YOUNG INITIATES
Hitherto, except very rarely, persons have been initiated only after their physical bodies
have come to mature age, and after they have proved by their activities in life that their hearts
are pledged to the work of the Logos. During the last few years, however, certain egos whose
bodies are still young have been given the privilege of Initiation, and we understand that this
has been done in order that when the Lord comes He may find a band of young workers ready
to serve Him. On His arrival the World-Teacher will wield the wondrous consciousness of the
Brotherhood, and the more helpers dwelling in physical bodies that He can draw round Him at
any given place, the more will His work be facilitated. He can use the services of any ordinary
man of the world to the extent of that man' s capacity; but one who is already an accepted
pupil of the Master would be of far more use to Him in many directions than the man of the
world could ever be; and of almost infinitely greater use still would be one who had passed the
portal of Initiation and had awakened all the multiple links which bind together the members of
the Brotherhood. It is always the ego who is initiated; the age of the physical body which it
happens to be holding at a given time has little to do with the case.
In all cases when young people have been initiated, elder members of the Brotherhood
living near to them or in touch with them in the physical body have undertaken to assist and
guide them. This is necessary, because of the great responsibility that Initiation brings along
with its expansion of consciousness and additional faculty and power. A wrong action or a false
step on the part of an Initiate involves bigger karmic consequences than a similar action on the
part of one who is not a member of the Brotherhood. Therefore perhaps it will be well to
include here a few directions for these younger people.
Each one should ever remember that he was initiated because in past lives, and perhaps
in the present one, he has helped the world to a certain requisite degree, and it is hoped that
he will continue in that path and become an ever larger channel for the life of the Logos. It is
because of the probability of his increased usefulness that he is admitted to Initiation, and at
the ceremony he takes the pledge, not only as the ego but as the Monad, that he will make it
his life-work to pour himself out in blessing, even as the Logos is continually streaming forth
His love. He must therefore each day and hour keep this pledge in mind and subserve all
things to it. His karma from the past gives him various personal characteristics and impulses;
he must take heed lest these drive him to think of himself and his own well-being, rather than
of the greater self and the welfare of the world.
Before he can undertake the larger work awaiting him, the youthful Initiate has often to
prepare himself by an ordinary training in College and University. In that case he will be
plunged into circumstances of vigorous activity and many self-centred interests. Life surrounds
him with many temptations, and with occasions tending to make him forget his pledge to the
Brotherhood. Through them all he must have a clearly defined attitude, that he has thrown in
his lot with the aims of the Brotherhood. In that life in the world on every occasion, whether of
study, recreation or amusement, he must definitely hold the thought: “Is this that I am going
to do likely to make me better equipped for the Master' s work, or a better channel to spread
love and happiness?”
He must always remember that the Brotherhood has the first claim on his services, and
must never put himself in any position which makes it impossible for him to fulfil his duty to it.
It is not intended that he should live the life of a hermit; but while he lives that life in society
which will give him the growth he requires, he must all the time watch to see whether it is
making him more of a channel for the Logos. Henceforth for him any experience, however
pleasant and harmless, which cannot make him a fuller channel of the Logos, or give an
opportunity for service, is valueless to him, and is so much waste of time. He should try to
take advantage of every opportunity to help that he sees, and to learn such things as will make
him useful.
THE EGO
REALIZATION OF UNITY
All that lives is really one, and it is the duty of those who enter the Brotherhood to know
that as a fact. We are taught that the Self is one, and we try to understand what that means;
but it is quite a different thing when we see it for ourselves, as the candidate does when he
enters the buddhic plane. It is as if in physical life we were each living at the bottom of a well,
from which we may look up at the sunlight in the world above; and just as the light shines
down into the depth of many wells, and yet ever remains the one light, so does the Light of the
One illumine the darkness of our hearts. The Initiate has climbed out of the well of the
personality, and sees that the light which he thought to be himself is in very truth the Infinite
Light of all.
While living in the causal body, the ego already acknowledged the Divine Consciousness
in all; when he looked upon another ego his consciousness leapt up as it were to recognize the
Divine in him. But on the buddhic plane it no longer leaps to greet him from without, for it is
already enshrined within his heart. He is that consciousness and it is his. There is no longer the
“you” and the “I,” for both are one-- facets of something that transcends and yet includes them
both.
Yet in all this strange advance there is no loss of the sense of individuality, even though
there is an utter loss of the sense of separateness. That seems a paradox, while yet it is
obviously true. The man remembers all that lies behind him. He is himself, the same man who
did this action or that in the far-off past. He is in no way changed, except that now he is much
more than he was then, and feels that he includes within himself many other manifestations as
well. If here and now a hundred of us could simultaneously raise our consciousness into the
intuitional world, we should all be one consciousness, but to each man that would seem to be
his own, absolutely unchanged, except that now it included all the others as well.
To each it would seem that it was he who had absorbed or included all those others, so
we are here manifestly in the presence of a kind of illusion, and a little further realization
makes it clear to us that we are all facets of a greater consciousness, and that what we have
hitherto thought to be our qualities, our intellect, our energies have all the time been His
qualities, His intellect, His energy. We have arrived at the realization in actual fact of the time-
honoured formula : “Thou art That.” It is one thing to talk about this down here and to grasp it,
or to think that we grasp it, intellectually; but it is quite another to enter into that marvellous
world and know it with a certainty that can never again be shaken.
When this buddhic consciousness fully impresses the physical brain, it gives a new value
to all the actions and relations of life. We no longer look upon a person or object, no matter
with what degree of kindliness or sympathy; we simply are that person or object, and we know
him or it as we know the thought of our own brain or the movement of our own hand. We
appreciate his motives as our own motives, even though we may perfectly understand that
another part of ourselves, possessing more knowledge or a different view-point, might act
quite differently.
Yet it must not be supposed that when a man enters upon the lowest sub-division of the
intuitional world he at once becomes fully conscious of his unity with all that lives. That
perfection of sense comes only as the result of much toil and trouble, when he has reached the
highest sub-division of this realm of unity. To enter that plane at all is to experience an
enormous extension of consciousness, to realize himself as one with many others; but before
him there opens a time of effort, of self-development, analogous at that level to what we do
down here when by meditation we try to open our consciousness to the plane next above us.
Step by step, sub-plane by sub-plane, the aspirant must win his way; for even at that level
exertion is still necessary if progress is to be made.
Having passed the first Initiation and consciously entered the buddhic plane, this work of
developing himself on sub-plane after sub-plane now lies before the candidate, in order that he
may get rid of the three great fetters, as they are technically called, which embarrass his
further progress. He is now definitely on the Path of Holiness, and is described in the Buddhist
system as the Sotapatti or Sohan, “he who has entered the stream”; while among the Hindus
he is called the Parivrajaka, which means “the wanderer,” one who no longer feels that any
place in the three lower worlds is his abiding-place of refuge.
CHAPTER IX
MENTAL DEVELOPMENT
The second Initiation rapidly continues the development of the mental body, and at or
near this point the pupil learns to use the mayavi-rupa, which is sometimes translated as the
body of illusion. This is a temporary astral body made by one who is able to function in his
mental body. When a man travels in the astral plane, he usually does so in the astral body;
and if it were necessary for him to show himself on the physical plane while he was functioning
in his astral body, he would have to materialize a physical body round it. This is sometimes
done, though not frequently, because it involves a great expenditure of force. Similarly, if he
were working in his mental body and desired to manifest himself on the astral plane, he would
need to materialize a temporary astral body, which is the mayavi-rupa. When he had finished
his work, he would withdraw to the mental plane once more, and the temporary body would
vanish, its materials returning to the general circulation of astral matter whence they had been
drawn by the pupil' s will.
729. Up to the time of the first Initiation the man works at night in his astral body;
but as soon as it is perfectly under control and he is able to use it fully, work in the mental
body is begun. When that body in turn is completely organized, it is a far more flexible vehicle
than the astral body, and much that is impossible on the astral plane can be accomplished
therein. With the power to form the mayavi-rupa, the man is able to pass instantly from the
mental plane to the astral and back, and to use at all times the greater power and keener
sense of the mental plane, and it is only necessary to form the astral materialization when he
wants to become visible to people in the astral world. It is necessary that the Master shall first
show His pupil how to make the mayavi-rupa, after which, although it is not at first an easy
matter, he can do it for himself.
A very great expansion and development of the mental body takes place in connection
with this second Initiation, but it is usually some years before the effects of this can show
themselves in the physical brain. As they begin to do so they unquestionably put a great strain
upon that brain, as it cannot be instantaneously tuned to the necessary pitch.
THE DANGER-POINT
The period after the taking of the second Initiation is in many ways the most dangerous
on the Path, although at any point until the fifth Initiation is passed there is the possibility of
falling back, or of spending many incarnations wandering about. But it is at this stage
especially that, if there is any weakness in a candidate' s character, it will show itself. It should
be impossible for a man who has raised himself to this height to fall back; but unfortunately
experience has shown us that even this does sometimes happen. In nearly all cases the danger
comes through pride; if there is the least tinge of pride in the man' s nature, he is in serious
risk of a fall. What we talk about down here as intellect is the merest reflection of the real
thing; yet some of us are proud of that, proud of our intellect and insight. So when a man gets
even a remote glimpse of what his intellect is going to be in the future there is serious danger,
and if he once starts on that line he will have a terribly hard time getting back again. Nothing
but unceasing and increasing vigilance can enable him to pass through this stage successfully,
and it must be his constant endeavour to kill out every trace of pride, selfishness and
prejudice.
When we know these things from behind, we find sudden and curious illumination thrown
upon various texts of the Bible. This danger-point in the life of the Initiate is indicated in the
Gospel story by the temptation in the wilderness which followed the Baptism of Christ by John.
The forty days in the wilderness symbolize the period during which the expansion of the mental
body given in the second Initiation is being worked down into the physical brain, though for the
ordinary candidate not forty days but forty years might well be required for its
accomplishment. In the life of Jesus it was the period when His brain was being adapted to the
incoming Christ. Then the devil, who in the symbolism represents the lower nature, comes to
tempt the Initiate, first to use his powers for the satisfaction of his own needs: “If thou be the
Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Then he is tempted to cast himself
down from a pinnacle of the temple, thus performing a miracle which would astound the
populace. And lastly he is shown all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and the
devil says: “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me”-- he is
tempted to use his powers to gratify his own ambition. Each of these temptations represents a
different form of pride.
Just as the first great Initiation corresponds to a new birth, so may the second Initiation
be justly compared to the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of Fire; for it is the power of the Third
Person of the Blessed Trinity that is outpoured at that moment, descending in what may but
inadequately be described as a flood of fire, a flaming tide of living light. The man at this stage
is spoken of among the Buddhists as a Sakadagamin, the man who returns but once, which
means that he who has reached that level should need but one more incarnation before
attaining Arhatship, the fourth Initiation, after which there is no compulsory physical rebirth.
The Hindu name for this second step is the Kutichaka, the man who builds a hut, he who has
reached a place of peace.
At this stage no additional fetters are cast off, but it is usually a period of considerable
psychic and intellectual advancement. If what are commonly called psychic faculties have not
been previously acquired, it is the tradition that they should be developed at this stage, as
without them it would seem practically impossible to assimilate the knowledge which must now
be given, or to do the higher work for humanity in which the Initiate is now privileged to assist.
He must have the astral consciousness at his command during his physical waking life, and
during sleep the heaven-world will be open before him-- for the consciousness of a man when
away from his physical body is always one stage higher than it is while he is still burdened with
the house of flesh. Dr. Besant, however, in her Initiation, the Perfecting of Man, supplies us
with an alternative interpretation of this; she says that before a man can come to the third
Initiation he must learn to bring the spirit of intuition (buddhi) down to his physical
consciousness, so that it may abide in him and guide him. Then she adds:
This process is usually called “the development of psychic faculties,” and it is so, in the
true meaning of the word “psychic”. But it does not mean the development of clairvoyance and
clairaudience, which depend on a different process. 1
1 Op. cit., p. 82.
THE THIRD INITIATION
When the candidate has passed through the four sub-stages of the second Initiation, and
has once more become Gotrabhu, he is ready for the third Initiation, to become the Anagamin,
which means literally “he who does not return,” for it is expected of him that he will attain the
next Initiation in the same incarnation. The Hindu name for this stage is the Hamsa, which
means a swan, but the word is also considered to be a form of the sentence So-ham, “That am
I”. There is a tradition, too, that the swan is able to separate milk from water, and the sage is
similarly able to realize the true value for living beings of the phenomena of life.
This Initiation is typified in the Christian symbolism by the Transfiguration of the Christ.
He went up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before His disciples: “ His face
did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light,” “exceeding white as snow, so as
no fuller on earth can white them”. This description suggests the Augoeides, the glorified man,
and it is no inaccurate picture of what happens at this Initiation, for just as the second
Initiation is principally concerned with the quickening of the lower mental body, so at this stage
the causal body is especially developed. The ego is brought more closely into touch with the
Monad, and is thus transfigured in very truth. Even the personality is affected by that
wondrous outpouring. The higher and the lower self became one at the first Initiation, and that
unity is never lost, but the development of the higher self that now takes place can never be
mirrored in the lower worlds of form, although the two are one to the greatest possible extent.
The Gospel story tells also that at the Transfiguration there appeared Moses and Elijah,
the chief figures of the old dispensation; one the greatest of the Jewish prophets, the other
representing the Jewish law. Thus the two dispensations or methods of approach to truth, that
of the following of the law and that of the inspiration of prophecy, are represented as with him
who was about to establish a new dispensation, that of the Gospel; and all these symbols have
meanings referring to the actual facts of the third Initiation.
Another symbol relating to the same step appears in the Gospel story of the presentation
of the Christ to His Father in the Temple. In the traditional account this is somewhat out of
place, for the Christ is then presented as a little child. At this stage of the man' s progress he
has to be brought before the Spiritual King of the World, the mighty Head of the Occult
Hierarchy, who, at this third step, either confers the Initiation Himself, or deputes one of His
pupils, the three Lords of the Flame who came with Him from Venus, to do so; and in the latter
event the man is presented to the King soon after the Initiation has taken place. Thus the
Christ is brought into the presence of His Father; the buddhi in the Initiate is raised until it
becomes one with its origin on the nirvanic plane, and a very wonderful union between the first
and the second principles in man is then effected.
THE ARHAT
DURING the stages following the first, second and third Initiations the candidate is
gradually developing the buddhic consciousness; but at the fourth Initiation he enters the
nirvanic plane, and from then onward he is engaged in climbing steadily through that, or rather
through that division of it, consisting of its five lower sub-planes, on which the human ego has
being. This initiation is in one way a midway point, as it is usually said that seven lives are
occupied on the average at normal times between the first and the fourth Initiations, and
seven lives also between the fourth and fifth; but these figures are capable of very great
reduction or increase, as I have said before, and the actual period of time employed is in most
cases not very great, since usually the lives are taken in immediate succession, without
interludes in the heaven-world.
The candidate who has passed the fourth Initiation is spoken of in Buddhist terminology
as the Arhat, which means the worthy, the capable, the venerable or perfect, and in the
Eastern books very many beautiful things are said about him, for they know at what a high
level of evolution he stands. The Hindus call him the Paramahamsa, the one above or beyond
the Hamsa.
CHRISTIAN SYMBOLOGY
In Christian symbology the fourth Initiation is indicated by the suffering in the garden of
Gethsemane, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of the Christ; though since there are certain
preliminary stages it may be more completely symbolized by the various events that are said
to have taken place during Holy Week. The first event in the series was that the Christ raised
Lazarus from the dead; and this is always commemorated on the Saturday before Palm
Sunday, though according to the Gospel narrative it took place a week or two earlier. On the
Sunday there was the triumphal entry into Jerusalem; on Monday and Tuesday the delivery of
a number of addresses in the Temple; on Wednesday the betrayal by Judas Iscariot; on
Thursday the Founding of the Holy Eucharist; on the night between Thursday and Friday the
trials before Pilate and Herod; and on Good Friday the Crucifixion. Holy Saturday was spent in
preaching to the spirits in prison, and at midnight on Saturday, or rather at the first moment
on Sunday morning, Christ rose from the dead, triumphant for evermore.
All these details of the Christ-drama have a relation to what really happens in connection
with the fourth Initiation. The Christ did something unusual and wonderful in the raising of
Lazarus on the Saturday, and it was very largely as a result of that that He enjoyed His one
earthly triumph soon after, for all the people came together when they heard of the raising of
the dead man. They waited for Him, and when He came out from the house to go on the way
to Jerusalem they received Him with an ovation and a great display of feeling, and treated Him
as in the East they still treat anyone whom they think to be holy; so He was escorted by the
people with great enthusiasm into Jerusalem, and having won that little earthly recognition, He
naturally took the opportunity of teaching them, and gave the addresses in the Temple, to
which great crowds came to see and hear Him. This is symbolical of what really takes place.
The Initiate attracts some attention, and gains a certain amount of popularity and recognition.
Then there is always the traitor to turn upon him and distort what he has said and done, so
that it appears to be evil; as Ruysbroek puts it:
Sometimes these unhappy ones are deprived of the good things of earth, of their friends
and relations, and are deserted by all creatures; their holiness is mistrusted and despised, men
put a bad construction on all the works of their life, and they are rejected and disdained by all
those who surround them; and sometimes they are afflicted with divers diseases.
Then follows a shower of obloquy and abuse, and his rejection by the world. After that
comes the scene in the garden of Gethsemane when the Christ feels Himself utterly forsaken;
and then He is held up to derision and crucified. Finally there is the cry from the cross: “My
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Madame Blavatsky held a theory, which she expounded in The Secret Doctrine, which I
am not able personally to verify, that the real meaning of those words was: “My God, how
Thou dost glorify me!” I do not know which of the two renderings is the more accurate, but
there is great truth in both of them. It is one of the features of the fourth Initiation that the
man shall be left entirely alone. First he has to stand alone on the physical plane; all his
friends turn against him through some misunderstanding; it all comes right afterwards but for
the time the man is left with the feeling that all the world is against him.
Perhaps that is not so great a trial, but there is another and inner side to it; for he has
also to experience for a moment the condition called Avichi, which means “the waveless,” that
which is without vibration. The state of Avichi is not, as has been popularly supposed, some
kind of hell, but it is a condition in which the man stands absolutely alone in space, and feels
cut off from all life, even from that of the Logos; and it is without doubt the most ghastly
experience that it is possible for any human being to have. It is said to last only for a moment,
but to those who have felt its supreme horror it seemed an eternity, for at that level time and
space do not exist. That appalling trial has, I think, two object-- first, that the candidate may
be able fully to sympathize with those to whom Avichi comes as a result of their actions; and
secondly, that he may learn to stand absolutely apart from everything external, triumphant in
his utter certainty that he is one with the Logos and that this overwhelming consternation,
caused by the sensation of isolation from Him, is nothing but an illusion and a temptation.
Some have collapsed before this terrible test, and have had to go back and begin over again
their climb towards the higher Initiation; but for the man who can stand firm through its awful
nightmare it is indeed a wonderful experience, however formidable, so that while to the trial
itself the interpretation “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” might be applicable, “How Thou dost
glorify me” would well express the feeling of the man who comes forth from it victorious.
This Initiation differs from all the others in that it has this strange double aspect of
suffering and victory. Each of the earlier Initiations was symbolized in the Christian system by
one definite fact, the Birth, the Baptism, the Transfiguration; but in order to represent this
fourth Initiation a series of events has been found necessary. The Crucifixion and all the varied
sufferings of which it was the culmination were employed to typify one side of this Initiation,
while the Resurrection with its triumph over death represents the other side. Always at this
stage there is suffering, physical, astral and mental; always there is the condemnation by the
world, and the apparent failure; always there is the splendid triumph upon higher planes--
which, however, remains unknown to the outer world. The peculiar type of suffering which
invariably accompanies this Initiation clears off any arrears of karma which may still stand in
the Initiate' s way; and the patience and joyousness with which he endures them have great
value in the strengthening of his character, and help to determine the extent of his usefulness
in the work which lies before him.
The Crucifixion and Resurrection which symbolize the actual Initiation are thus described
in an ancient Egyptian formula:
Then shall the candidate be bound upon the wooden cross, he shall die, he shall be
buried, and shall descend into the underworld; after the third day he shall be brought back
from the dead..
Only after three clear days and nights and part of a fourth had passed was the still
entranced candidate of those ancient days raised from the sarcophagus in which he had lain,
and borne into the outer air at the eastern side of the pyramid or temple, so that the first rays
of the rising sun might fall upon his face and awaken him from his long sleep.
There is an old proverb, “No cross, no crown,” which may be taken to mean that without
man' s descent into matter, his binding on the cross of matter, it would have been impossible
for him to gain the resurrection and receive the crown of glory; but by the limitation and
through the sorrow and trouble he has gained the victory. It is impossible for us to describe
that resurrection; all words that we can employ seem to sully its splendour, and any attempt at
description seems almost blasphemy, but this much may be said, that a complete triumph has
been obtained over all sorrows, troubles and difficulties, temptations and trials, and it is his for
ever because he has conquered by knowledge and inner strength. We may recall how the Lord
Buddha proclaimed His freedom:
Many a house of life
Hath held me-- seeking ever him who wrought
These prisons of the senses, sorrow-fraught;
Sore was my ceaseless strife!
But now,
Thou builder of this tabernacle-- thou!
I know thee! Never shalt thou build again
These walls of pain,
Nor raise the roof-tree of deceits, nor lay
Fresh rafters on the clay;
Broken thy house is, and the ridge-pole split!
Delusion fashioned it!
Safe pass I thence-- deliverance to obtain.
NIRVANA
For the Arhat henceforth the consciousness of the buddhic plane is his while still in the
physical body, and when he leaves that body in sleep or trance, he passes at once into the
unutterable glory of the nirvanic plane. At his Initiation he must have at least one glimpse of
that nirvanic consciousness, just as at the first Initiation there must be a momentary
experience of the buddhic, and now his daily effort will be to reach further and further up into
the nirvanic plane. It is a task of prodigious difficulty, but gradually he will find himself able to
work upwards into that ineffable splendour.
The entry into it is utterly bewildering, and it brings as its first sensation an intense
vividness of life, surprising even to him who is familiar with the buddhic plane. The surprise
has been his before, though in a lesser measure, whenever he mounted for the first time from
one plane to another. Even when we rise first in full and clear consciousness from the physical
plane to the astral, we find the new life to be so much wider than any that we have hitherto
known that we exclaim: “I thought I knew what life was, but I have never known before!”
When we pass into the mental plane, we find the same feeling redoubled; the astral was
wonderful, but it was nothing to the mental world. When we pass into the higher mental plane,
again we have the same experience. At every step the same surprise comes over again, and no
thought beforehand can prepare one for it, because it is always far more stupendous than
anything that we can imagine, and life on all those higher planes is an intensity of bliss for
which no words exist.
European Orientalists have translated Nirvana as annihilation, because the word means
“blown out,” as the light of a candle is extinguished by a breath. Nothing could be a more
complete antithesis to the truth, except in the sense that it is certainly the annihilation of all
that down here we know as man, because there he is no longer man, but God in man, a God
among other Gods, though less than they.
Try to imagine the whole universe filled with and consisting of an immense torrent of
living light, the whole moving onward, without relativity, a resistless onward sweep of a vast
sea of light, light with a purpose (if that is comprehensible) tremendously concentrated, but
absolutely without strain or effort-- words fail. At first we feel nothing but the bliss of it, and
see nothing but the intensity of the light; but gradually we begin to realize that even in this
dazzling brightness there are brighter spots (nuclei, as it were) through which the light obtains
a new quality that enables it to become perceptible on lower planes, whose inhabitants without
this aid would be altogether beneath the possibility of sensing its effulgence. Then by degrees
we begin to comprehend that these subsidiary suns are the Great Ones, the Planetary Spirits,
great Angels, karmic Deities, Dhyan Chohans, Buddhas, Christs and Masters, and many others
who are to us not even names, and to see that through Them the light and the life are flowing
down to the lower planes.
Little by little, as we become more accustomed to this marvelous reality, we begin to
perceive that we are one with Them, though far below the summit of Their splendour, that we
are part of the One that dwells somehow in Them all, and also in every point of space between,
and that we ourselves are also a focus, and through us at our much lower level the light and
life are flowing to those who are still further away (not from it, for all are part of it and there is
nothing else anywhere) but from the realization of it, the comprehension and experience of it.
Madame Blavatsky often spoke of that consciousness as having its centre everywhere
and its circumference nowhere, a profoundly suggestive sentence, attributed variously to
Pascal, Cardinal de Cusa and the Zohar, but belonging by right to the Books of Hermes. Far
indeed from annihilation is such consciousness; the Initiate reaching it has not in the least lost
the sense that he is himself; his memory is perfectly continuous; he is the same man, yet all
this as well, and now indeed he can say “I am I” knowing what “I” really means.
Wonderfully well was this expressed by Sir Edwin Arnold in The Light of Asia:
Not lifeless in the sense of being dead, for he is the very exemplification and expression
of the most vivid life imaginable; lifeless because he is far beyond both death and life alike,
quit of the samsara for ever. Hell had been defined as time without God, and heaven as God
without time; surely this latter description is still more applicable to Nirvana.
Any description of Nirvana which we may attempt must sound strange. No words that we
can use can give even the least idea of such an experience as that, for all with which our minds
are acquainted has long ago disappeared before that level is attained. There is, of course, even
at that level, a sheath of some sort for the Spirit, impossible to describe, for in one sense it
seems as though it were an atom, and yet in another it seems to be the whole plane. The man
feels as if he were everywhere, but could focus anywhere within himself, and wherever for a
moment the outpouring of force diminishes, that is for him a body.
774. The ineffable splendour of Nirvana necessarily surpasses all physical
comprehension, and consequently even the most poetical attempts to depict it are foredoomed
to failure. Nevertheless each man who writes of it approaches it from a different angle, and
each may contribute some point which the others have missed. I have already tried to give my
own impressions; let me now quote for you those of my lifelong friend and brother Bishop,
George Sydney Arundale, who in his book Nirvana has made a very remarkable and most
valiant effort to convey that which cannot be conveyed. We all fail, of course; yet I cannot but
feel that he comes nearer to the achievement of success than I have done. He writes:
My first remembrance is of seeing the Master K.H. looking as I had never seen Him
before. Radiant He is always, supremely radiant, but now He was more than radiant, and I
cannot find a word down here to describe Him in the glory in which I perceived Him with the
first flash of Nirvanic consciousness. Majestic and radiant are poor words-- “blinding” perhaps
expresses it better, for just for a moment I was overwhelmed. I almost wanted to veil my face
from sight of Him, and yet I could not keep my eyes from Him, so unfathomably splendid did
He appear-- only less glorious than the King, as I afterwards realized, though at the time no
greater glory could I conceive.
I summon up my courage. I feel as if He were saying to me: “Welcome to a new kingdom
which you must learn to conquer.” In His power my consciousness unfolds, and I step as it
were across a threshold into Nirvana. Words and phrases, however beautiful, however
majestic, almost desecrate as they strive to describe conditions there. Even the faint touch of
first experience of this lofty level dwarfs into insignificance all other experiences of all other
planes, save only the entry into the Presence of the One Initiator. I remember my first glimpse
of the Buddhic plane on the occasion of admission to the ranks of the Great White
Brotherhood; I recall to this day my marvelling at the vision of the Master in His Buddhic
vehicle, and well do I remember, in the days that followed, the wondrous sense of unity with all
things, with the trees and flowers, feeling with them all, growing with them and in them,
suffering and rejoicing in and with them. I remember, too, the casting off of the friend of
ages-- the causal body; and I remember a vivid rending contrast between the moment before
and the moment after the glimpse into the new kingdom.
But to-day the Master seems to me as One whom I have never known before, robed in
the glories of a Kingdom I am entering as a little child. The new consciousness enfolds me, and
in a moment my world is full of new, strange, glorious values. All is different, supremely
different, though the same. A new Divinity is open to my eyes, and unfolds to my gaze a new
meaning, a new purpose. It is the Buddhic unity transcended, glorified-- a more marvellous
unity; in some wonderful way it is merged in a state vaster and more tremendous. There is
something even more true than unity, something more real. It seems impossible, and yet it is
so.
What is the nature of that of which even Buddhic glory is but a limitation? I must use
words, and words seem a terrible anti-climax. I can only say it is the Glory of a Light
Transcendent, a world of Light which is the image of God' s own Eternity. I am face to face with
an unspotted mirror of His Power and with an image of His Goodness. And the mirror, the
image, is an endless ocean of Light, of which I become (though in one sense I already have
been) a part, by an apotheosis of at-one-ments on plane after plane below. Brotherhood in the
outer world; unity in the Buddhic world; light transcendent in Nirvana.
This Light Transcendent is nearer to the Real even than the Buddhic Unity which hitherto
had seemed the most stupendous fact in all the world. Light the beginning; Light the path;
Light the future; God said: “Let there be Light,” and there was and is Light indescribable.
Beautiful as is the light in the world, it is but the faint and feeble image of the Light
Triumphant-- the adjective somehow seems appropriate-- of these regions of the Real. It is the
Sun-Light of the Sun ere it descends into the forms in which we know it. It is Light purified of
form. It is Light which is the Life of form. It is an ever-present “intimation of immortality,” a
future within the Now, and yet Eternal. It is an-- I do not say “the”-- apotheosis and essence of
the light we know. All the glory of the most wonderful dawn (and one feels nothing can be
more wonderful than a perfect Eastern dawn) is brought to glorious fruition and splendid
perfection in the noonday which is Nirvana.
780. God is Light; Light is God; Man is Light; all is Light-- a new meaning to the
ancient Egyptian exhortations: “Look for the Light! Follow the Light ! Perceive and learn to be
at one with the Light of God in all things.” I look upon the world. I see the world in terms of
Light. God-Light in manifestation in man-light, in rock-light, in tree-light, in creature-light. All
is light-- a blinding glory at the centre, translated into colour as it radiates towards its
circumference. The blinding glory everywhere-- the God-Light-- the blazing seed of futurity in
each individual thing in every kingdom. And the light-seed breaks up its whiteness (the word
seems wrong, but “lightningness” is awkward) into colours of the spectrum.
In each kingdom of Nature, seven great pathways of colour, potential in each pathway in
the beginning, unfolding into glorious fruition at the close. I see the diamond, the ruby, the
emerald, the sapphire-- kings of the mineral kingdom-- superb in the perfection of their
colours. Yet at the bottom these glories exist, imprisoned, slowly being released through the
evolutionary process, until they stand free and splendid as the kingdom' s jewels. In every
kingdom it is the same. The free once more imprisoned that a mightier and more splendid
freedom still may be achieved.
Bathed in the lightning-standing-still which is Nirvana, I perceive the imprisoned
lightnings in all things. I perceive the Light which is dull-- the savage; the Light which is
bright-- the man evolved; the Light which is glory-- the Superman, the Master. I see colour
everywhere in process of transmutation, of glorification, of transcendence. There is no
blackness anywhere in the sense of a negation of Light. God said: “Let there be Light.” And
there was and is light everywhere. “His Light shineth even in our darkness.”
What is Nirvana? The Light Divine. I am touching, perhaps only for a moment, its lowest
reaches, its densest layers. I cannot conceive down here even this Glory, but it leaves in me as
I return to earth a new perception of Reality. I have taken a step nearer to the Real. There is a
greater comradeship in the world than I had thought-- a deeper identity, a more glorious
origin, a more glorious way, and a more glorious goal. Round everywhere and at all times are
God' s Sunshine Messengers. Every colour speaks His Word and His Voice. Every form breathes
His purpose. I, dust in the Sunshine, yet am part of it, and looking upward to the Sun I see the
sign of my own Divinity, and the embodied promise of my ultimate achievement. As is our Lord
the Sun so shall we all be, for He has willed it so.
Light is language, thought, vesture and vehicle. A flash of light conveys for us down here
a whole philosophy.
Light is the Will of the Sun, the Wisdom of the Sun, the Love of the Sun. It is written in
books that Nirvana is bliss. Even from the outermost region, at the frontiers, I know Nirvana to
be infinitely more. Just one glimpse and all things seem to be made new, within me and
without me. I remain, yet am wholly changed, and everything round me seems to be
undergoing a process of re-valuation. Even now, everything means far more than before. Every
object, in every kingdom, seems in one way far more a shadow of Reality than a reality, for I
perceive how feeble and inadequate must be all reflections of the Light. I did not know before
that they were so feeble. And yet, equally true is it that every object is far more real, far less
of a shadow of Reality, than I had thought. I see the prison-opportunity of form, and I perceive
the shadows. I see the unfolding splendour of the Light-Eternal, and I perceive the Real. All
other worlds are shadow-worlds compared with this Nirvanic world. And yet they are more real
worlds because of this Nirvanic world, for I now perceive the seal of God' s purpose set upon
all things, and I must reverence all things in far deeper measure than before.
Philosophers talk of pure Being. I seem to be able to sense what pure Being must be, not
because I have contacted it, but because I have contacted that which is less short of pure
Being than all other consciousness-states I have so far experienced.
How true it is that language in this case conceals thought and meaning! I need Nirvanic
language to convey the sense of Nirvanic things. As Myers has said so beautifully:
It is only fair to the distinguished author to say that the quotation given above is but a
series of disconnected extracts; I strongly recommend my readers to study carefully the book
from which they are taken; it can be procured from The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar.
The Buddhist monk Ananda M. in his book The Wisdom of the Aryas writes of Nirvana as
follows:
The literal meaning of the word is simply “ blown out ”-- extinguished as is the flame of a
lamp when it has been blown out; but you who have so far followed what has been said
concerning it will understand how great has been the error of those who have expounded it as
simply tantamount to sheer annihilation. Annihilation it is indeed in one sense-- the
annihilation of Desire, of Passion, of Self-delusion. But when we come to try to expound its
meaning in terms other than negative, we are met with an insurmountable difficulty; that,
namely, all our positive definitions must necessarily be in terms of the life we know, in terms of
human thought; and here we speak of That which is beyond all Life, the very Goal towards
which all Life is tending. . . .
To the instructed Buddhist, Nirvana stands for the Ultimate, the Beyond, the Goal of
Life-- a state so utterly different from this conditioned ever-changing being of the Self-dream
that we know as to lie not only quite beyond all naming and describing, but far past even
Thought itself. And yet-- and herein lies the wonder and the greatness of this Wisdom of the
Aryas, won by the Greatest of the Aryans for the enfranchisement of man from all his self-
wrought bondages-- this Glory utterly beyond all grasp of thought, this Peace that is the very
purpose of all strife-involving being lies nearer to us than our nearest consciousness; even as,
to him who rightly understands, it is dearer than the dearest hope that we can frame. Past all
the glory of the moon and sun, still infinitely far above the starry heights of conscious being
sublimated to its ultimate; beyond the infinite abysses of that all-embracing AE ther wherein
these universes have their bourneless home;-- illimitably far remote above the utmost
altitudes where Thought, with vainly-beating wings, falls like some lost bird that had aspired till
the thin air no longer could support it;-- still it dwells higher than the very thought we now are
thinking, higher than the consciousness that, for the transitory moment, is all that truly can be
termed ourselves. .
Selfless to live and selfless die-- seeking for no reward, but only service of the greater
life; hoping for no high heaven, for no aeonian bliss, but only to grow selfless every day-- such
is the lesson that pervades alike the Master' s life, the Master' s Teaching; thereby may Peace
come to all life at last!
Dr. Besant, referring to this subject in a recent lecture, said:
There is, in the Buddhist philosophy, a wonderful sentence of the Lord Gautama Buddha,
where He is striving to indicate in human language something that would be intelligible about
the condition of Nirvana. You find it in the Chinese translation of the Dhammapada, and the
Chinese edition has been translation into English in Trübner' s Oriental Series. He puts it there
that, unless there were Nirvana, there could be nothing; and He uses various phrases in order
to indicate what He means, taking the uncreated and then connecting with it the created;
taking the Real and then connecting with it the unreal. He sums it up by saying that Nirvana
is ; and that if it were not, naught else could be. That is an attempt (if one may call it so with
all reverence) to say what cannot be said. It implies that unless there existed the Uncreate, the
invisible and the Real, we could not have a universe at all. You have there, then, the indication
that Nirvana is a plenum, not a void. That idea should be fundamentally fixed in your mind, in
your study of every great system of Philosophy. So often the expressions used may seem to
indicate a void. Hence the western idea of annihilation. If you think of it as fullness, you will
realize that the consciousness expands more and more, without losing utterly the sense of
identity; if you could think of a centre of a circle without a circumference, you would glimpse
the truth.
The man who has once realized that marvellous unity can never forget it, can never be
quite as he was before; for however deeply he may veil himself in lower vehicles in order to
help and save others, however closely he may be bound to the cross of matter, cribbed,
cabined and confined, he can never forget that his eyes have seen the King in His Beauty, that
he has beheld the land which is very far off-- very far off, yet very near, within us all the time if
we could only see it, because to reach Nirvana we need not go away to some far-distant
heaven, but only open our consciousness to its glory. As the Lord Buddha said long ago: “Do
not complain and cry and pray, but open your eyes and see, for the light is all about you, and it
is so wonderful, so beautiful, so far beyond anything of which men have ever dreamt, for which
they have ever prayed, and it is for ever and for ever.”
“The land that is very far off” is a quotation from the Prophet Isaiah, but strangely
enough it is a mistranslation. Isaiah did not speak of the land which is very far off, but of the
land of far distances, which is a very different idea and one of great beauty. It suggests that
the Prophet had had some experience of these higher planes, and was comparing in his
thought the splendour of the star-strewn fields of heaven with the cramped catacombs through
which we crawl on earth; for that is what this life is as compared with that higher one, a blind
crawling through dark and devious ways as compared with a splendid purposeful life, an utter
realization of the Divine Will ensouling and working through the wills of those who dwell
therein.
THE WORK OF THE ARHAT
A mighty work the Arhat has before him to climb to the topmost heights of that utmost of
human planes of existence, and while he is doing it he must cast off the remaining five of the
ten great fetters, which are:
Ruparaga-- desire for beauty of form or for physical existence in a form, even including
that in the heaven-world.
Aruparaga-- desire for formless life.
Mano-- pride.
Uddhachchha-- agitation or irritability, the possibility of being disturbed by anything.
Avijja -- ignorance.
The sixth and seventh fetters include not only the idea of raga, or attraction, but also
that of dwesha or repulsion, and the casting off of these fetters implies a quality of character
such that nothing in the lower planes of form, or the higher and formless planes, can hold him
by its attraction even for a moment, or can repel him by its disagreeableness if he have work
therein. As the eighth fetter, Mano, is filed away he forgets the greatness of his own
achievements, and pride becomes impossible for him, since now he stands always in the light,
and measures himself against no lower thing. Then comes the perfect serenity which naught
can disturb, leaving him free to acquire all knowledge, to become practically omniscient as
regards our planetary chain.
CHAPTER XI
A SUMMARY
I HAVE just explained that of the human beings who attain Adeptship, but a few remain
on our earth as members of the Occult Hierarchy, to promote the evolution of life upon it in
accordance with God' s plan. At present there are some fifty or sixty of these Supermen so
engaged, and of Their general work our President has written as follows in her pamphlet on
The Masters:
They aid, in countless ways, the progress of humanity. From the highest sphere They
shed down light and life on all the world, that may be taken up and assimilated, as freely as
the sunshine, by all who are receptive enough to take it in. As the physical world lives by the
life of God, focused by the sun, so does the spiritual world live by that same life, focused by
the occult Hierarchy. Next, the Masters specially connected with religions use these religions as
reservoirs into which They pour spiritual energy, to be distributed to the faithful in each religion
through the duly appointed “means of grace”. Next comes the great intellectual work, wherein
the Masters send out thought-forms of high intellectual power to be caught up by men of
genius, assimilated by them and given out to the world; on this level also They send out Their
wishes to Their disciples, notifying them of the tasks to which they should set their hands.
Then comes the work in the lower mental world, the generation of the thought-forms which
influence the concrete mind and guide it along useful lines of activity in this world, and the
teaching of those who are living in the heavenly world. Then the large activities of the
intermediate world, the helping of the so-called dead, the general direction and supervision of
the teaching of the younger pupils, and the sending of aid in numberless cases of need. In the
physical world the watching of the tendencies of events, the corrections and neutralizing, as far
as law permits, of evil currents, the constant balancing of the forces that work for and against
evolution, the strengthening of the good, the weakening of the evil. In conjunction with the
Angels of the Nations also They work, guiding the spiritual forces as the others guide the
material.
THE PARISHES
We may consider more fully some of the lines of work, here indicated in small compass
with the sweep of vision for which our President is world-renowned. Though the number of
Adepts is small, They have arranged that in all the world no life shall be disregarded or
neglected; so They have divided the earth into special areas in somewhat the same way as in
older countries the Church has divided the whole land into parishes, so that wherever a man
may live he is within one of these geographical divisions and has a definite Church organization
to administer to his spiritual and sometimes to his bodily needs. The parishes of the Adepts,
however, are not country districts or parts of towns, but huge countries and even continents.
As the world is at present divided, one great Adept may be said to be in charge of
Europe, and another looks after India; and in the same way the whole world is parcelled out.
The parishes do not follow our political or geographical boundaries, but within His territory the
Adept has all the different grades and forms of evolution to regard-- not only our own, but also
the great kingdom of the Angels, of the various classes of nature-spirits, the animals,
vegetables and minerals beneath us, the kingdoms of the elemental essence, and many others
of which so far nothing has been heard by mankind; so there is a vast amount of work to be
accomplished. In addition to the guardianship of the Adepts, each race or country has also the
assistance of a Spirit of the Race, a Deva or guardian Angel who watches over it and helps to
guide its growth, and corresponds in many ways to the ancient conception of a tribal Deity,
though he stands at a considerably higher level. Such, for example, was Pallas Athene.
There are many different sets of influences at work in the service of the Logos for the
evolution of man, and naturally they all operate in the same direction, and in co-operation with
one another.
We must never make the mistake of attributing to these great agencies the disasters
which sometimes overtake countries, as in the case of the French Revolution and the recent
upheavals in Russia. Those are due entirely to the savage passions of the people, which have
run riot and caused destruction instead of construction, and they illustrate the danger to which
the work of the Adepts and the Spirit of the Race is exposed, when They make experiments
along democratic lines. There is terrible evil involved in tyranny, and sometimes great suffering
also, but at least there is some sort of control; and the great problem in getting rid of the
tyranny is how to do it without losing social stability and self-control. When that goes, many
persons fail to keep the human end uppermost in their own personalities, passion rises, crowds
run riot, and the people become liable to obsession by great waves of undesirable influence.
The national Angel tries to guide the feelings of the people; he is interested in them in great
masses, and he would when necessary urge them to great patriotism and heroic deeds, just as
a general might encourage his men to advance on the field of battle; but he is never reckless
of their lives or careless of their suffering, any more than a wise general would be.
DISTRIBUTION OF FORCE
A large part of the Adepts' work, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, lies at levels far
beyond the physical, as They are engaged in pouring out Their own power, and also the force
from the great store filled by the Nirmanakaya. It is the karma of the world that it shall have a
certain amount of this uplifting force at its service, and even ordinary men who turn their wills
into line with the Divine Will (by directing their thought and feeling to the service of humanity)
add a little to the reservoir, and are thus privileged to share in the great sacrifice. On account
of this, humanity is evolving as a unit, and the miracle of brotherhood enables every one to
make much more progress than would be even remotely possible were he standing entirely by
himself. All this is part of the scheme of the Logos, who apparently has calculated upon our
taking part in His plan. When He devised it He thought: “When my people shall rise to a certain
level, they will begin to co-operate intelligently with me; therefore I will arrange so that when
they come to that point they will be able to draw upon my power.” Thus He is counting upon
every one.
The Brotherhood is one with all humanity on higher levels, and through its agency the
distribution of the supply of force from the great reservoir takes place for men. The Adepts are
raying upon all egos without exception in the higher mental plane, and thus giving the greatest
possible assistance to the unfoldment of the indwelling life. That life is like a seed which cannot
die and must grow, because the principle of evolution, the Logos Himself, is at the heart of its
very being; in man the plant has already risen through the soil and is seeking the upper air,
and the rapidity of its development is now very largely due to the sunlight of the spiritual force
that comes through the channels of the Hierarchy. This is one of the many ways in which the
more advanced help the less advanced, as they share more and more the divine nature, in
accordance with the divine plan.
Each of the Adepts who have undertaken this special work is raying out upon enormous
numbers of people, running often into many millions simultaneously; and yet, such is the
wonderful quality of this power which He pours forth, that it adapts itself to each one of these
millions as though he were the only object of its influence, and it appears as though what for
us would be full attention were being given to that one.
It is difficult to explain on the physical plane how this may be-- but it arises from the fact
the Master' s nirvanic consciousness is a kind of point which yet includes the entire plane. He
can bring that point down through several planes and spread it out like a kind of vast bubble.
On the outside of that huge sphere are all the causal bodies which He is trying to affect, and
He, filling the sphere, appears all in all to each individual. In this way He fills with His life the
ideals of millions of people, and is for them respectively the ideal Christ, the ideal Rama, the
ideal Krishna, an Angel or perhaps a spirit-guide.
This is quite a different kind of work from the superintendence of one of the great
parishes, and in it the Master pays attention chiefly to people of one type, those who are
developing along His own line of evolution, though naturally most of them are quite
unconscious of His action. He has also many special cases to deal with, and for this purpose
sometimes delegates part of this work to Devas, leaving them considerable liberty within
certain well-defined limits. The Devas in their turn employ nature-spirits and make a variety of
thought-forms, and there is thus a large field of activity connected with their work.
EFFORT
NATURE OF ADVANCE ACHIEVEMENT
ABOUT
DIAGRAM
¹ While the Renaissance was obviously a slow and gradual process, most authorities
would put its effective commencement somewhat later than this, and would connect it with the
fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453
The latest of these efforts was the founding of The Theosophical Society in 1875. After
careful consideration the Masters Morya and Kuthumi undertook the responsibility of that step,
and chose that noble worker Madame Blavatsky to help Them on the physical plane. Most
students of Theosophical literature know how she was prepared for what she had to do; how in
due course the Brotherhood sent her to America to search for Colonel Olcott, the comrade who
would supply what was lacking in herself-- the power of organization and of speaking to men
and gathering them round him and shaping them into a movement in the outer world-- and
how the Society was founded in New York, and later had its Headquarters removed to India.
As I write, our Society has completed its fiftieth year of service to humanity, and it is
impossible to estimate the vast amount of good it has done in every department of human life.
Its influence cannot in the least be measured by the number of its members or branches,
although that is by no means insignificant, since it extends to every civilized part of the globe.
But in each field of human endeavour it has sounded its characteristic note, the reverberations
of which multiply around us in the words and work of statesmen and scientists, literary men
and artists, and many others, of whom, great numbers perhaps have never even heard the
word Theosophy. It has drawn attention to the realities of the invisible world and the power of
mind. It has voiced the claims in outward life of the fact of brotherhood, seeking no uniformity
in human life, but the organization for mutual support of widely different individuals, each of
whom shall be strong in his special type, and all of whom shall be bound together by the
indissoluble bond of respect for the man who is different from oneself. It has brought together
East and West as never before; it has demanded fair play in the comparison of religions, and
revealed with unmistakable clearness their essential unity of teaching and their common
source. And it has brought thousands to the feet of the Masters to serve Them with all their
power and with all their hearts for the good of mankind for all time to come.
THE RACES
In its work for the world the Brotherhood deals not only with the present, but looks far
into the future, and prepares for the evolution of new races and nations in which the qualities
of humanity shall be developed in harmonious sequence. As we shall see in Chapter xiii, the
progress of mankind takes place in no haphazard manner, but the formation of the races with
their special characteristics, physical, emotional and mental (serving as classes in the great
world-school, for the development of special qualities) is as precise and definite as the
curriculum and time-table of any modern college.
The great Aryan race which, though not yet at its prime, dominates the world to-day with
its supreme gift of intellect, has followed after the Atlantean race, the people of which still form
the majority of mankind and occupy a great portion of the land surface of our globe.
THE COMING
In this connection three great pieces of work are in hand at the present time, the first of
which is the preparation for the physical embodiment and activity among men of the
Bodhisattva or World-Teacher, who is the same great Personage, the Christ, who occupied the
body of Jesus two thousand years ago. His coming must not be confused with the centennial
events already mentioned; those belong to the First Ray, and are in the department of occult
work that deals with the guidance of races and subdivisions of races; whereas this is an event
which occurs only once in a long time, and is an activity of the Second Ray, the department of
religion and education.
The World-Teacher is even now at our doors, and we may hope for ever-increasing
manifestations of His power, His wisdom and His love. The Order of the Star in the East was
established in 1911 to prepare for that Coming by drawing together people of every sect and
religion all over the world, who for various reasons believe in the near approach of the World-
Teacher, and are willing to combine, in a grand effort to proclaim it to the world, and prepare
themselves as far as may be to be useful servants of the Lord when He comes.
Since the Lord Maitreya has chosen to announce His coming to the world through our
President, we are justified, I think, in assuming that His teaching will be somewhat along the
line of the ideals that she has been promulgating with such wonderful eloquence during the
last thirty-seven years. Some sects of Christians still cling to the superstition that He will come
to judge mankind and to destroy the earth, so that there is a great element of fear and
uncertainty connected with their beliefs. But all fear of God comes from a misunderstanding.
The Coming of Christ is indeed connected with an end-- not the end of the world, but the
end of an age or dispensation. The Greek word is aion, which is the same as aeon in English;
and just as Christ said two thousand years ago that the dispensation of the Jewish law had
come to an end, because He had come to found a new one, that of the gospel, so will the era
of that gospel come to an end when He returns and founds yet another. He will give the same
great teaching; the teaching must be the same, for there is only one Truth, though perhaps it
may be put a little more clearly for us now, because we know a little more. It will be
promulgated in some fresh dress, perhaps, with some beauty of expression which will be
exactly suited to us in this present day, and there will be some statement of it which will
appeal to a large number of people.
It will certainly be the same, because if has appeared in all the existing faiths. They have
differed much in their method of presenting it, but they all agree absolutely in the life which
they ask their followers to live. We find considerable difference between the external teachings
of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Muhammadanism; but if we examine the good men of
any one of those religions and inquire into their daily practice, we shall find that they are all
leading precisely the same life-- that they all agree as to the virtues a good man must possess
and as to the evils he must avoid.
They all tell us that a man must be charitable, truthful, kindly, honourable, helpful to the
poor; they all tell us that a man who is hard and grasping and cruel, who is untruthful and
dishonourable, is making no progress, and has no chance of success until he changes his ways.
As practical people we must recognize that the things of real importance in any religion are not
the vague metaphysical speculations on matters of which no one can really know anything for
certain, for these can have no influence upon our conduct; the important things are the
precepts which affect our daily lives, which make us this kind of man or that kind of man in our
relations with our fellow-men. Those precepts are the same in all existing religions; they will be
the same in the new teaching, whatever it may be.
Perhaps we may go a little further than that in Predicting what He will teach. Surely, the
great central truth which he will emphasize is that the evils of the world come from lack of love
and brotherliness-- that if man will learn to love and to adopt the brotherly attitude, all evil will
pass away and the golden age will dawn upon us. Not immediately-- we cannot hope for that;
but at least men will begin to see for themselves, and to understand how much more is to be
gained along that line than the other.
Such is the spirit of brotherhood gradually acquired by the true Theosophist, holding to
his fellow by inner impulse, not by outward compulsion; and membership in the Society is
verily a training by the Masters which, if successful, will fit the man to be reborn in the
community of the sixth root race when it is established on the physical plane.
CHAPTER XII
THE CHOHANS
IN the last chapter I have tried to describe some of the numerous avenues of work of the
great Masters, but there are of course many others, about some of which we know practically
nothing; yet what we do know indicates that the work is vast and varied, and that the Adepts
deal with it in different ways, according to Their own temperaments and preferences. There is
a sevenfold division running through all things, as I must explain more fully presently, and this
appears also in the Great White Brotherhood. In the Hierarchy the seven Rays are clearly
distinguished. The First or ruling Ray is governed by the Lord of the World; at the head of the
Second Ray stands the Lord Buddha, and under These come respectively the Manu and the
Bodhisattva of the root race which is predominant in the world at any given time. Parallel in
rank with These is the Mahachohan, who supervises all the other five Rays, each of which
nevertheless has also its own Head. In my next chapter I will explain what I can about the
loftier ranks of the Hierarchy, attempting in this to render some account of the work of the
Heads of Rays Three to Seven, and of the Masters Morya and Kuthumi, who stand at Their level
on the First and Second Rays.
The title Chohan is given to those Adepts who have taken the sixth Initiation, but the
same word is employed also for the Heads of Rays Three to Seven, who hold very definite and
exalted offices in the Hierarchy. We are given to understand that the meaning of the word
Chohan is simply “Lord,” and that it is used both generally and specifically, in much the same
way as the word Lord is employed in England. We speak of a man as a lord because he
possesses that title, but that is quite different from what we mean when we speak, for
example, of the Lord Chancellor or the Lord-Lieutenant of the County. The term appears again
in the name Dhyan Chohan, which occurs in The Secret Doctrine and elsewhere, and then it
refers to Beings of every high station, altogether outside the Occult Hierarchy of our planet.
CHARACTERISTIC OF
RAY CHARACTERISTIC MAGIC LAST RELIGION
RAY
Alchemy (Material
V Fire Zoroastrian
Substances)
Christianity (Kabala,
VI Incarnation of Deity Bhakti (Devotion)
etc.)
DIAGRAM 3
After what I have said above it should be clear that the information that has as yet
reached us about the Rays is fragmentary. It is not only not a full account of the subject, but it
is not even a perfect outline, for we were plainly told that there were huge gaps in the
description given to us, which could not possibly be filled up till much later. So far as we know,
very little has hitherto been written on this subject, and that little so guardedly expressed as
not to be at all readily intelligible, and occult teachers are markedly reticent when questioned
about it.¹
¹ While the first edition of this book was passing through the press an important work on
the subject appeared-- The Seven Rays , by Professor Ernest Wood. The material which it gives
is illuminative and is presented from quite a new angle.
DIAGRAM
From all that I have said above it follows that these seven types are visible among men,
and that every one of us must belong to one or other of the Rays. Fundamental differences of
this sort in the human race have always been recognized; a century ago men were described
as of the lymphatic or the sanguine temperament, the vital or the phlegmatic, and astrologers
classify us under the names of the planets, as Jupiter men, Mars men, Venus or Saturn men,
and so on. I take it that these are only different methods of stating the basic differences of
disposition due to the channel through which we happen to have come forth, or rather, through
which it was ordained that we should come forth.
It is, however, by no means an easy matter to discover to what Ray an ordinary man
belongs, for he has become very much involved in matter and has generated a great variety of
karma, some portion of which may be of a kind that dominates and obscures his essential
type, even perhaps through the whole of an incarnation; but the man who is approaching the
Path ought to be showing in himself a definite driving impulse or leading power, which has the
character of the Ray to which he belongs, and tends to lead him into the kind of work or
service which distinguishes that Ray; and it will also bring him to the feet of one of the Masters
upon it, so that he becomes enrolled, as it were, in the College of which the Chohan of the Ray
may be regarded as the Principal.
DIAGRAM 6
Students should understand that a great department of Motherhood exists, and has an
important place in the Inner Government of the world. Just as the Manu is the head of a great
department which looks after the physical development of races and sub-races, just as the
Bodhisattva is the head of another which attends to religion and education, so is the great
Official who is called the Jagat-Amba or World-Mother the head of a department of
Motherhood. Just as the Lord Vaivasvata is at present filling the office of the Manu, and the
Lord Maitreya that of the World-Teacher, so is the great Angel who was once the mother of the
body of Jesus filling the post of World-Mother.
It is the work of this department to look especially after the mothers of the world. From
the occult standpoint the greatest glory of woman is not to become a leader in society, nor is it
to take a high university degree and live in a flat in scornful isolation, but to provide vehicles
for the egos that are to come into incarnation. And that is regarded not as something to hide
and to put away, something of which one should be half-ashamed; it is the greatest glory of
the feminine incarnation, the grand opportunity which women have and men have not. Men
have other opportunities, but that really wonderful privilege of motherhood is not theirs. It is
the women who do this great work for the helping of the world, for the continuance of the
race; and they do it at a cost of suffering of which we who are men can have no idea.
Because this is so-- because of the great work done and the terrible suffering which it
entails-- there is this special department of the government of the world, and the duty of its
officials is to look after every woman in the time of her suffering, and give her such help and
strength as her karma allows. As we have said, the World-Mother has at her command vast
hosts of angelic beings, and at the birth of every child one of these is always present as her
representative. To every celebration of the Holy Eucharist comes an Angel of the Presence, who
is in effect a thought-form of the Christ Himself-- the form through which He endorses and
ratifies the Priest' s act of consecration; and so it is absolutely true that, though the Christ is
one and indivisible, He is nevertheless simultaneously present upon many thousands of altars.
In something the same way, though of course at a far lower level, the World-Mother herself is
present in and through her representative at the bedside of every suffering mother. Many
women have seen her under such conditions, and many who have not been privileged to see
have yet felt the help and the strength which she outpours.
It is the earnest desire of the World-Mother that every woman in her time of trial should
have the best possible surroundings-- that she should be enfolded in deep and true affection,
that she should be filled with the holiest and noblest thoughts, so that none but the highest
influences may be brought to bear upon the child who is to be born, so that he may have a
really favourable start in life. Nothing but the purest and best magnetism should await him,
and it is imperatively necessary that the most scrupulous physical cleanliness should be
observed in all particulars. Only by the strictest attention to the rules of hygiene can such
favourable conditions be obtained as will permit of the birth of a noble and healthy body, fit for
the habitation of an exalted ego.
This matter of providing a suitable incarnation for highly developed egos is one which
causes considerable anxiety to the World-Mother and to her attendant angels. Many thousands
of advanced souls are ready for incarnation and anxious to take it, in order that they may help
in the work of the World-Teacher; but the difficulty of finding appropriate bodies is very great.
In consequence of foolish and wasteful ostentation an evil tradition is growing up in the
Western world that men and women cannot afford to marry, and that large families are too
expensive to be practically possible. Not understanding the wonderful opportunity which their
sex gives them, women desire to be free from the restraints of marriage in order that they
may ape the lives and the actions of men, instead of taking advantage of their peculiar
privileges. Such a line of thought and action is obviously disastrous to the future of the race,
for it means that many of the better-class parents take no part in its perpetuation, but leave it
entirely in the hands of the more undesirable and undeveloped egos.
In India the conditions are different, for every one marries as a matter of course; but
even in the higher castes there is often a lamentable lack of supervision, and the conditions
provided are very unfavourable for the production of sound and healthy bodies. This is a very
serious matter, earnestly to be commended to the consideration of all students of occultism,
who should assuredly do everything in their power to bring about a more satisfactory state of
affairs.
It would indeed be well that women in all countries should band themselves together in
an endeavour to spread abroad among their sisters accurate information on this most
important subject; every women should fully realize the magnificent opportunities which the
feminine incarnation gives her; every woman should be taught the absolute necessity for
proper conditions before, during and after her pregnancy. Not only the most perfect cleanliness
and the most careful attention should surround the baby body, but also it should be
encompassed by perfect astral and mental conditions, by love and trust, by happiness and
holiness. In this way the work of the World-Mother would be immensely facilitated and the
future of the race would be assured.
It has often been asked whether there are any Adepts living in feminine bodies. The
existence of the World-Mother is an answer to that question. Because of her wonderful quality
of intense purity and because of her development in other ways, she was chosen to be the
mother of the body of the disciple Jesus long ago in Palestine; and because of the wonderful
patience and nobility of soul with which she bore all the terrible suffering which came to her as
the consequence of that position, she attained in that same life the level of Adeptship. Having
reached that, and finding the seven paths open before her, she chose to enter the glorious
Deva evolution and was received into it with great honour and distinction.
That is the truth which lies behind the Roman Catholic doctrine of her Assumption; not
that she was carried up into heaven among the Angels in her physical body, but that when she
left that body she took her place among the Angels, and being presently appointed to the office
of World-Mother she became very truly a queen among them, as the Church so poetically says.
A great Deva needs no physical body; but while she holds her present office she will always
appear to us in feminine form, as will those Adepts who have chosen to help her in her work.
All through the centuries thousands upon thousands both of men and of women have
poured heartfelt devotion at her feet, and it is very certain that no jot or tittle of that devotion
has been misdirected or wasted; for she, whose love for mankind has evoked it, has always
used its force to the uttermost in the onerous task which she has undertaken. However little
men have known it, they have poured such a splendid wealth of love at her feet not because
she was once the mother of Jesus, but because she is now the Mother of all living.
We must not think of this knowledge about the World-Mother as exclusively the
possession of Christianity; she is clearly recognized in India as the Jagat-Amba, and in China
as Kwan-Yin, the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge. She is essentially the representative, the
very type and essence of love, devotion and purity; the heavenly wisdom indeed, but most of
all Consolatrix Afflictorum, the Consoler, Comforter, Helper of all who are in trouble, sorrow,
need, sickness or any other adversity.
The Shakti or feminine element in each Person of the Blessed Trinity is also recognized in
certain quarters in the well-known emblem of the Triple Tau, as shown in diagram .
DIAGRAM
There is also a similar Trinity in the case of higher and greater Logoi; and far behind and
beyond all that we can know or imagine there is the Absolute, of which the presentation is also
a Trinity. At the other end of the scale we find a Trinity in man, his Spirit, his Intuition and his
Intelligence; which represent the threefold qualities of will, wisdom and activity. This Trinity in
man is an image of that other and greater Trinity; yet it is also much more than an image. It is
not only symbolical of the Three Persons of the Logos, but in some way impossible to
understand in physical consciousness, it is also an actual expression and manifestation of those
Three Persons at this lower level.
DIAGRAM 8
The first and second members of this great Triangle are different from the third, being
engaged in work of a character that does not descend to the physical plane, but only to the
level of the buddhic body in the case of the Lord Buddha, and the atmic plane in that of the
great Agent of the First Aspect. Yet without Their higher work none of that at lower levels
would be possible, so They provide for the transmission of Their influence even to the lowest
plane through Their representatives, the Manu Vaivasvata and the Lord Maitreya respectively.
These two great Adepts stand parallel with the Mahachohan on Their respective Rays,
both having taken the Initiation that bears that name; and thus another Triangle is formed, to
administer the powers of the Logos down to the physical plane. We may express the two
Triangles in one diagram (No. 9).
DIAGRAM 9
For the entire period of a root race the Manu works out the details of its evolution, and
the Bodhisattva, as World-Teacher, Minister of Education and Religion, helps its members to
develop whatever of spirituality is possible for them at that stage, while the Mahachohan
directs the minds of men so that the different forms of culture and civilization shall be unfolded
according to the cyclic plan. Head and Heart are These, and the Hand with five Fingers, all
active in the world, moulding the race into one organic being, a Heavenly Man.
This last term is no mere simile, but describes a literal fact, for at the close of each root
race effort those who have attained Adeptship within it form a mighty organism which is in a
very real sense one, a Heavenly Man, in whom, as in an earthly man, are seven great centres,
each of which is a mighty Adept. The Manu and the Bodhisattva will occupy in this great Being
the place of the brain and heart centres, and in Them and as part of Them, gloriously one with
them, shall we Their servants be; and the splendid totality will go on in its further evolution to
become a Minister of some future Solar Deity. Yet so transcending all comprehension is the
wonder of it all that this union with others does not mar the freedom of any Adept in the
Heavenly Man, nor preclude His acting quite outside its scope.
Until recently it was not the rule that the office of Mahachohan should be occupied by a
permanent Adept of that grade. It was usual that each of the five Chohans, in rotation, should
be appointed to leadership over all five Rays, though before occupying that position He was
required to take the Mahachohan Initiation. At present, however, we find a Chohan in charge of
each of the five Rays, and also a Mahachohan separate from all of them-- a departure from
what we understand to be the ordinary method which may be due principally to the near
Coming of the World-Teacher.
LIMITS OF THE RAYS
On these five Rays, Three to Seven, the highest Initiation that can be taken on our globe
is that of the Mahachohan, but it is possible to go further on the First and Second Rays, as is
indicated in the following table of Initiations, in which it will be seen that the Buddha Initiation
is possible on the Second and First Rays, and that the Adept may go still further on the First.
Initiation 9
Initiation 8
Initiation 7
Initiations 1 to 6
DIAGRAM 10
Lest it should seem as though in this fact there lay something in the nature of an
injustice, it must be made clear that Nirvana is attainable as soon on one Ray as on another:
any man on reaching the Asekha level is at once free to enter this condition of bliss for a
period that to us would seem eternity; but He enters its first stage only, which, exalted
infinitely beyond our comprehension as it is, is yet far below the higher stages available to the
Chohan and Mahachohan respectively, while even These, in turn, pale before the glory of those
divisions of the Nirvanic state which those Adepts reach who make the tremendous effort
necessary to take during earth-life the still higher Initiations of the First and Second Ray.
Further progress is also possible on the five Rays to those who take up other lines of work
outside our Hierarchy.
CHANGE OF RAY
The possibility of changing one' s Ray by the firm determination to do so leaves all paths
alike open to the occult student. It is known that both the Masters with whom The
Theosophical Society has been most closely connected have chosen to make this effort, and
those of us who wish to retain our affiliation to them as individuals are therefore, consciously
or unconsciously, in course of making it also. The method by which the transfer is effected is
simple enough in theory, though often very difficult to carry out in practice. If a student on the
Sixth or devotional Ray wishes to transfer himself to the Second Ray, that of wisdom, he must
first endeavour to bring himself under the influence of the second sub-division of his own Sixth
Ray. Then he will try steadily to intensify the influence of that sub-ray in his life, until finally it
becomes dominant. Thus instead of being on the second sub-division of the Sixth Ray he will
find himself on the sixth sub-division of the Second Ray; in a word, he has tempered his
devotion by increasing knowledge till it has become devotion to the Divine Wisdom. From that
he can if he wishes, by sufficiently strenuous and long-continued effort, further transfer himself
to some other sub-division of the Second Ray.
983. Evidently here we have a departure from the ordinary rules of procedure, for
a Monad who came forth through one Planetary Spirit will return through another. Such
changes are comparatively rare, and tend to balance one another satisfactorily at the end. The
transfers are usually to the First and Second Rays, and there are relatively few persons on
those two at the lower levels of evolution.
PERFECT UNITY
The marvellous unity of the members of these Triangles with the Logos may be well
illustrated by the case of the Bodhisattva. We have seen that the union of pupil with Master is
closer than any tie imaginable on earth; closer still, because at a higher level, was that
between the Master Kuthumi and His Teacher the Master Dhruva, who was in His turn a pupil of
the Lord Maitreya, during the time when the latter took pupils. Thereby the Master Kuthumi
became also one with the Lord Maitreya, and as at their level unity is still more perfect, the
Master Kuthumi is one with the Bodhisattva in a very wonderful way.
The Adepts seem so far above us that we can hardly distinguish any difference in glory
between the lower and the higher levels. They all look like stars above us, and yet They speak
of Themselves as dust under the feet of the Lord Maitreya. There must be an enormous
difference there, even though we cannot see it. We look up to these stupendous heights and all
appears a blinding glory, in which we cannot presume to distinguish one as greater than
another, except that we can see by the size of the aura that there are differences. But at least
we can comprehend that the unity of the Master Kuthumi with the Lord Maitreya must be a far
greater and more real union than anything imaginable at lower levels.
Still more is the Bodhisattva one with that Second Person of the Logos whom He
represents. He has taken the office of representing Him here on earth, and that is the meaning
of the hypostatic union between Christ as God and Christ as man. For He, the Bodhisattva,
whom in the West we call the Lord Christ, is the Intuitional Wisdom, the Representative and
Expression of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Herein is the mystery which underlies
the two natures of the Christ, “who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one
Christ-- One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into
God.”
The Second Person of the Ever-blessed Trinity existed ages before the Lord Maitreya
came into evolution; and the first descent of that Second Person into incarnation was when as
the Second Outpouring He took the vehicles of His manifestation out of the virgin matter of His
new solar system, already impregnated and vivified by God the Holy Spirit. When that had
been done we had for the first time Christ unmanifested as opposed to Christ manifested, and
even at that time it must have been true that Christ as God was in one sense greater than
Christ as man. As the Bodhisattvas, who are to represent this Second Person on different
planets of His system, one by one attain the Headship of Their Ray, They in turn become so
thoroughly one with Him that They deserve the title of Christ as Man; and so at the moment of
the consummation of such Initiation the hypostatic union takes place for each of Them.
This Second Aspect of the Logos pours Himself down into matter, is incarnated, and
becomes man; and is therefore “equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to
the Father as touching His manhood,” as is said in the Athanasian Creed. Our Lord the
Bodhisattva has been a man like ourselves, and is such a man still, though a perfected man;
yet that manhood has so been taken into the Godhead that He is in truth a very Christ, a
Representation of the Second Aspect of the Trinity; for in Him and through Him it is possible for
us to reach to that Divine Power. That is why the Christ is spoken of as the Mediator between
God and man; it is not that He is making a bargain on our behalf, or buying us off from some
horrible punishment, as many orthodox Christians believe, but that He is in truth a Mediator,
One who stands between the Logos and man, whom man can see, and through whom the
power of the Deity pours forth to humankind. Therefore is He the Head of all religions through
which these blessings come.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BUDDHA
THE Buddha of the present time is the Lord Gautama, who took His last birth in India
about two thousand five hundred years ago, and in that incarnation finished His series of lives
as Bodhisattva, and succeeded the previous Buddha Kasyapa as Head of the Second Ray in the
Occult Hierarchy of our globe. His life as Siddartha Gautama has been wonderfully told in Sir
Edwin Arnold' s Light of Asia, one of the most beautiful and inspiring poems in our language.
Seven Buddhas appear in succession during a world-period, one for each race, and each
in turn takes charge of the special work of the Second Ray for the whole world, devoting
Himself to that part of it which lies in the higher worlds, while He entrusts to His assistant and
representative, the Bodhisattva, the office of World-Teacher for the lower planes. For One who
attains this position Oriental writers think no praise too high, no devotion too deep, and just as
we regard those Masters to whom we look up as all but divine in goodness and wisdom, so to
an even greater degree do They regard the Buddha. Our present Buddha was the first of our
humanity to attain that stupendous height, the previous Buddhas having been the product of
other evolutions, and a very special effort was needed on His part to prepare Himself for this
lofty post, an effort so stupendous that it is spoken of constantly by the Buddhists as the
Mahabhinishkramana, the Great Sacrifice.
Many thousands of years ago there arose the need for one of the Adepts to become the
World-Teacher of the fourth root race; for the time had come when humanity should be able to
supply its own Buddhas. Up to the middle of the fourth round of the fourth incarnation of our
Chain, which was exactly the central point of the scheme of evolution to which we belong, the
great Officers who were required-- the Manus and the World-Teachers and others-- were
supplied to our humanity by more advanced humanities of other Chains, which had made more
progress or perhaps were older than we; and we ourselves, having been thus assisted, shall in
our turn have later on the privilege to make provision for other and more backward schemes of
evolution.
In such ways the real brotherhood of all that lives is demonstrated; and we see that it is
not merely a brotherhood of humanity, or even of the life in this chain of worlds, but that all
the chains in the solar system mutually interact and help one another. I have no direct
evidence that solar systems give assistance to each other in such ways, but I should imagine it
by analogy to be almost certain that even that is done. At least I have myself seen Visitors
from other systems, as I have said before, and have noticed that They are not merely
travelling for pleasure, but are certainly in our system for some good purpose. What Their
purpose is I do not know; but of course it is not my business.
Now at this time in the remote past to which we have referred, humanity should have
begun to provide its own Teachers; but we are told that no one had quite reached the level
required for the incurring of so tremendous a responsibility. The first-fruits of Humanity at this
period were two Brothers who stood equal in occult development; one being He whom we now
call the Lord Gautama Buddha, and the other our present World-Teacher, the Lord Maitreya. In
what way They fell short of the required qualifications we do not know; but, out of His great
love for humanity the Lord Gautama instantly offered to make Himself ready to undertake
whatever additional effort might be necessary to attain the required development. We learn
from tradition that life after life He practised special virtues, each life showing out some great
quality achieved.
That great sacrifice of the Buddha is spoken of in all the sacred books of the Buddhists;
but they have not understood the nature of the sacrifice, for many believe it to have been the
descent of the Lord Buddha from Nirvanic levels after His Illumination to teach His Law. It is
true that He did so descend, but that would not be anything in the nature of a sacrifice; it
would only be an ordinary, but not very pleasant piece of work. The great sacrifice that He
made was this spending of thousands of years in order to qualify Himself to be the first of
mankind who should help His brother-men by teaching to them the Wisdom which is life
eternal.
That work was done, and nobly done. We know something of the various incarnations
that He took after that, as Bodhisattva of His time, though there may be many more of which
we know nothing. He appeared as Vyasa; He came to ancient Egypt as Hermes, the Thrice-
Greatest, who was called the Father of All Wisdom; He was the first of the twenty-nine
Zoroasters, the Teachers of the Religion of the Fire; still later He walked amongst the Greeks
as Orpheus, and taught them by means of music and of song; and finally He took His last birth
in the north of India, and wandered up and down the Ganges valley for five and forty years,
preaching His Law, and drawing round Himself all those who in previous lives had been His
pupils.
In some way which we cannot hope yet to understand, because of the great strain of
those many ages of effort, there were certain points in the work of the Lord Buddha which it
may be that He had not time to perfect utterly. It is impossible at such a level for there to be
anything in the nature of a failure or a fault, but perhaps the strain of the past was too great
even for such power as His. We cannot know; but the fact remains that there were certain
minor matters to which at the time He could not perfectly attend, and therefore the after-life of
the Lord Gautama was not quite the same as that of His Predecessors. It is usual, as I have
said, for a Bodhisattva when He has lived His final life and become Buddha-- when He has
entered into glory, bearing His sheaves with Him, as it is put in the Christian Scriptures-- to
hand over His external work entirely to His Successor, and devote Himself to His labours for
humanity at higher levels. Whatever may be these manifold activities of a Dhyani Buddha, they
do not bring Him again into birth on earth; but because of the peculiar circumstances
surrounding the life of the Lord Gautama two differences were made, two supplementary acts
were performed.
THE VALLEY
The place selected is a small plateau surrounded by low hills, which lies on the northern
side of the Himalayas, not far from the frontier of Nepal, and perhaps about four hundred miles
west of the city of Lhassa. This little plain (see Diagram 11) is roughly oblong in shape, its
length being perhaps a mile and a half and its breadth rather less. The ground slopes slightly
downwards from south to north, and is mostly bare and stony, though in some places covered
with coarse wiry grass and rough scrubby vegetation. A stream runs down part of the west side
of the plateau, crosses its north-west corner, and escapes about the middle of the north side
through a pine-clothed ravine, eventually reaching a lake which is visible at a distance of some
miles. The surrounding country seems wild and uninhabited, and there are no buildings in sight
except a single ruined stupa with two or three huts beside it, on the slope of one of the hills on
the eastern sides of the plain. About the centre of the southern half of the plain lies a huge
block of greyish-white stone, veined with some glittering substance-- an altar-like block,
perhaps twelve feet in length by six feet wide, and standing about three feet out of the ground.
DIAGRAM 11
DIAGRAM 12
On His materialization in the centre of the circle all the Adepts and Initiates bow gravely
towards Him, and another verse is chanted. After this, still intoning verses, the inner rings
divide into eight parts, so as to form a cross within the outer circle, the Lord Maitreya still
remaining at the centre. At the next movement of this stately ritual, the cross becomes a
triangle, the Lord Maitreya moving forward so as to stand at its apex, and therefore close to
the altar-stone. Upon that altar, in the open space left in front of the golden bowl, the Lord
Maitreya reverently lays the Rod of Power (Diagram 12), while behind Him the circle changes
into a rather involved curved figure, so that all are facing the altar. At the next change the
curved figure becomes a reversed triangle, so that we have a representation of the well-known
sign of The Theosophical Society, though without its encircling snake. This figure in turn
resolves into the five-pointed star, the Lord Maitreya being still at the southern point nearest
the altar-stone, and the other great Officials or Chohans at the five points where the lines
intersect. A diagram of the symbolic figures is herewith appended, as some of them are not
easy to describe. (see Diagram 13 at following page.)
DIAGRAM 13
When this seventh and final stage is reached the chanting ceases, and after a few
moments of solemn silence the Lord Maitreya, again taking the Rod of Power into His hands
and raising it above His head, utters in a few sonorous words of Pali:
“All is ready; Master, come!”
Then as He again lays down the fiery rod, at the exact moment of the full moon, the Lord
Buddha appears as a gigantic figure floating in the air just above the southern hills. The
members of the Brotherhood bow with joined hands, and the multitude behind Them fall on
their faces and remain prostrate, while the others sing the three verses which were taught by
the Lord Buddha Himself during His earth life to the schoolboy Chatta:
The Lord Buddha, the Sage of the Sakyas, is among mankind the best of Teachers. He
has done that which was to be done, and has crossed to the other shore (Nirvana). He is filled
with strength and energy; Him, the Blessed One I take for my guide.
The truth is non-material; it brings freedom from passion, desire and sorrow; it is free
from all stain; it is sweet, plain and logical; this truth I take as my guide.
Whatever is given to the eight kinds of the Noble Ones, who in pairs form the four
grades, who know the truth, verily brings great reward; this Brotherhood of the Noble Ones I
take as my guide.
The figure which floats above the hills is of enormous size, but exactly reproduces the
form and features of the body in which the Lord last lived on earth. He appears seated cross-
legged, with the hands together, dressed in the yellow robe of the Buddhist monk, but wearing
it so as to leave the right arm bare. No description can give an idea of the face-- a face truly
God-like, for it combines calmness and power, wisdom and love in an expression containing all
that our minds can imagine of the Divine. We may say that the complexion is clear yellowish-
white, and the features clearly cut; that the forehead is broad and noble; the eyes large,
luminous and of a deep dark blue; the nose slightly aquiline; the lips red and firmly set; but all
this puts before us merely the outer mask and gives but a little grasp of the living whole. The
hair is black-- almost blue-black-- and wavy; curiously, it is neither worn long according to
Indian custom, nor shaved altogether in the manner of Oriental monks, but is cut off just
before it reaches the shoulders, parted in the centre and swept back from the forehead. The
story is told that when the Prince Siddartha left home to seek the truth, he seized his long hair
and cut it off close above his head with a sweep of his sword, and that ever afterwards he kept
it at the same length.
One of the most striking features of this wondrous apparition is the splendid aura which
surrounds the figure. It falls into concentric spheres, as do the auras of all highly advanced
men; its general plan is the same as that of the Arhat depicted in Plate xxvi in Man Visible and
Invisible but the arrangement of its colours is unique. The figure is englobed in light which is
somehow at the same time dazzling and yet transparent-- so bright that the eye can hardly
rest upon it, and yet through it the face and the colour of the robe stand out with perfect
clearness. Outside of that comes a ring of glorious ultramarine; then in succession glowing
golden yellow, the richest crimson, pure silvery white and a magnificent scarlet-- all these
being of course really spheres, though showing as bands when seen against the sky. Shooting
out at right angles, outside all these, are rays of all these hues intermingled, and interspersed
with flashes of green and violet, as will be observed when we refer to our frontispiece.
These colours, in exactly this order, are described in ancient Buddhist scriptures as
constituting the aura of the Lord; and when in 1885 it was thought desirable that a special flag
should be found for the Buddhists of Ceylon, our President-Founder Colonel Olcott, in
consultation with our Sinhalese brothers at Colombo, evolved the idea of utilizing for that
purpose that same significant grouping of colours. The Colonel tells us ( Old Diary Leaves. Vol.
iii, page 352.) that he learnt some years later from the Tibetan ambassador to the Viceroy of
India, whom he met at Darjeeling, that the colours are the same as those in the flag of the
Dalai Lama. The idea of this symbolical standard seems to have been widely accepted; I have
myself seen it in Buddhist Temples at places as far apart as Rangoon and Sacramento in
California.
Through a most unfortunate mistake these bands of colour were given in a wrong order
in the plate accompanying the first edition of this book; the error has now been corrected. It is
of course impossible to obtain in a printed illustration any approach to the brilliancy and purity
of the colours as seen in the sky; all we can do is to offer a suggestion to help the imagination
of the reader.
In earlier books we have described scarlet in man' s aura as expressing anger only; so it
does in the ordinary lower astral; but quite apart from this, we find that at higher levels a far
more magnificent and luminous scarlet, the very essence of living flame, betokens the
presence of dauntless courage and high determination. It is of course as denoting the
possession of these qualities in a superlative degree that it appears in the aura of the Lord
Buddha. We might conjecture that the somewhat unusual prominence of this brilliant scarlet
band may be significant of the special manifestation of those qualities in that age-long work of
self-development to which I have referred on page 298.
The Lord Maitreya, who takes so prominent a part in this ceremony, will in due course of
time succeed to the office now held by the Lord Gautama. It will perhaps be of interest to
compare His aura with that which we have just described. The easiest way to imagine it is to
look at the illustration of the aura of an Arhat on Plate xxvi of Man Visible and Invisible and
then modify it in imagination as here indicated. It has a general resemblance to that, but
besides being so much larger the colours are somewhat differently arranged.
The heart of it is blinding white light, just as in the case of the Arhat; then, eliminating
the yellow from that part, let the rose-coloured oval retain its present position, but extend
inwards up to the edge of the white. Outside that rose-coloured oval put a band of yellow
instead of the blue; outside the green comes a belt of blue; outside of that the violet, as in the
book, but outside of the violet again a broad band of the most glorious pale rose, into which
the violet imperceptibly melts. Outside of all comes the radiation of mixed colours, just as in
the book. The rays of white light flash through it in the same way, yet even they seem faintly
tinged with the ever-present pale rose. The whole aura gives the impression of being suffused
with the most delicate yet glowing rose, much as is Plate xi in Man Visible and Invisible.
A point which seems worthy of notice is that in this aura the colours come exactly in the
same order as in the solar spectrum, though orange and indigo are omitted. First the rose
(which is a form of red) then the yellow, shading into green, blue, violet in succession. And
then it goes on into the ultra-violet, melting into rose-- the spectrum beginning again in a
higher octave, just as the lowest astral follows upon the highest physical.
Of course that is a very poor description, but it seems the best that we can do. It must
be understood that it exists in many more dimensions than we can anyhow represent. In order
to say thus much about it I have tried to do something nearly equivalent to taking a three-
dimensional section of it. But it is wise for us to remember that it is by no means impossible
that another section might be taken in a slightly different manner, which would yield somewhat
dissimilar results, and yet be quite as true. It is hopeless to try to explain on the physical plane
the realities of the higher worlds.
When the Mahamangala Sutta is finished, the Lord Maitreya takes the golden bowl of
water from the altar-stone, and holds it above His head for a few moments, while the
multitude behind, who have also provided themselves with vessels filled with water, follow His
example. As He replaces it on the altar-stone another verse is chanted:
He is the Lord, the Saint who is perfect in knowledge, who possesses the eight kinds of
knowledge and has accomplished the fifteen holy practices, who has come the good journey
which led to the Buddhahood, who knows the three worlds, the unrivalled, the Teacher of gods
and men, the Blessed One, the Lord Buddha.
As this ends, a smile of ineffable love beams forth from the face of the Lord as He raises
His right hand in the attitude of benediction, while a great shower of flowers falls among the
people. Again the members of the Brotherhood bow, again the crowd prostrates itself, and the
figure slowly fades out of the sky, while the multitude relieves itself in shouts of joy and praise.
The members of the Brotherhood come up to the Lord Maitreya in the order of Their admission,
and each sips the water in the golden bowl, and the people also sip theirs, taking the
remainder home in their quaint leather bottles as holy water to drive away all evil influences
from their houses, or perhaps to cure the sick. Then the vast company breaks up with mutual
congratulations, and the people bear away to their far-distant homes an ineffaceable memory
of the wonderful ceremony in which they have taken part.
THE PREDECESSORS OF THE BUDDHA
An interesting glimpse of the predecessors of the Buddha is to be found in the Vision of
St. John the Divine: “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats; and upon the
seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their
heads crowns of gold.”
He who is privileged to see this-- and remember, it will come to every one some day--
does so from the special point of view of his own beliefs. Therefore St. John saw what he
expected to see, the twenty-four elders of the Jewish tradition. That number, twenty-four,
marks the date at which this vision was first seen, or rather the date at which the Jewish idea
of that glory was formulated. If we now could raise ourselves into the Spirit, and could see that
ineffable glory, we should see twenty-five, not twenty-four Elders, for there has been one Lord
Buddha who has attained since this vision was crystallized in the Jewish scheme of higher
thought. For those elders are the Great Teachers who have taught the worlds in this our
Round. There are seven Buddhas to each world; that makes twenty-one for the three worlds
which we have passed, and then the Lord Gautama was the fourth of the Buddhas of this
world. Therefore, twenty-four were the elders in those old days, but They would be twenty-five
if we could see Them now.
The Christian Church has translated that some-what differently, taking those elders as its
twelve apostles and the twelve Jewish prophets. If those twenty-four were the apostles and the
prophets, the seer must have seen himself among the rest, which would surely have been
mentioned. Those elders had on their heads crowns of gold, it is said, and a little later on we
read that They cast their crowns before Him, as we sing in the glorious Trinity hymn.
I remember that as a child I marvelled much how that could be. It seemed a strange
thing that these men could constantly cast down those crowns, and still have crowns to cast. I
could not understand it, and I wondered what scheme there was for the returning of the
crowns to their heads, so that they could cast them down again. Such faintly ridiculous ideas
are perhaps not unnatural in a child; but they disappear when one understands. If we have
seen images of the Lord Buddha we must have noticed that out of the crown of His head there
usually comes a little mound or cone. It is as a crown, golden in colour, which represents the
outpouring spiritual force from what is called the sahasrara chakra, the centre at the top of the
man' s head-- the thousand-petalled lotus, as it is poetically called in Oriental books. (See The
Chakras, by C. W. Leadbeater, issued by The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras.)
In the highly developed man that centre pours out splendour and glory, which makes for
him a veritable crown; and the meaning of the passage is that all that he has developed, all
the splendid karma that he makes, all the glorious spiritual force that he generates-- all that
he casts perpetually at the feet of the Logos to be used in His work. So, over and over again,
can he continue to cast down his golden crown, because it perpetually re-forms as the force
wells up from within him.
Sorrow or Suffering.
The Cause of Sorrow.
The Ceasing of Sorrow (or the Escape from Sorrow).
The Way which leads to the Escape from Sorrow.
The First Truth is an assertion that all manifested life is sorrow, unless man knows how to
live it. In commenting upon this, the Bodhisattva said that there are two senses in which
manifested life is sorrowful. One of these is to some extent inevitable, but the other is an
entire mistake and is very easily to be avoided. To the Monad, who is the true Spirit of man, all
manifested life is in one sense a sorrow, because it is a limitation; a limitation which we in our
physical brain cannot in the least conceive, because we have no idea of the glorious freedom of
the higher life. In exactly the same sense it has always been said that the Christ offers Himself
as a Sacrifice when He descends into matter. It is a sacrifice undoubtedly, because it is an
inexpressibly great limitation, for it shuts off from Him all the glorious powers which are His on
His own level. The same is true of the Monad of man; he undoubtedly makes a great sacrifice
when he brings himself into connection with lower matter, when he hovers over it through the
long ages of its development up to the human level, when he puts down a tiny fragment of
himself (a finger-tip as it were) and thereby makes an ego, or individual soul.
Even though we may be only a tiny fragment-- indeed, a fragment of a fragment-- we are
nevertheless a part of a magnificent reality. There is nothing to be proud of in being only a
fragment, but there is a certainty that because we are therefore part of the higher, we can
eventually rise into the higher and become one therewith. That is the end and aim of our
evolution. And even when we attain that, remember that it is not for the sake of our delight in
the advancement, but that we may be able to help in the scheme. All these sacrifices and
limitations may rightly be described as involving suffering; but they are undertaken gladly as
soon as the ego fully understands. An ego has not the perfection of the Monad, and so he does
not fully understand at first; he has to learn like everybody else. That quite tremendous
limitation at each further descent into matter is an unavoidable fact, and so there is that much
of suffering inseparable from manifestation. We have to accept that limitation as a means to an
end, as part of the Divine Scheme.
There is another sense in which life is often sorrow, but a kind of sorrow that can be
entirely avoided. The man who lives the ordinary life of the world often finds himself in trouble
of various kinds. It would not be true to say that he is always in sorrow, but he is often in
anxiety, and he is always liable at any moment to fall into great sorrow or anxiety. The reason
for this is that he is full of lower desires of various kinds, not at all necessarily wicked, but
desires for lower things; and because of these desires he is tied down and confined. He is
constantly striving to attain something which he has not, and he is full of anxiety as to whether
he will attain it; and when he has attained it, he is anxious lest he should lose it. This is true
not only of money but of position and power, of fame and of social advancement. All these
cravings cause incessant trouble in many different ways. It is not only the individual anxiety of
the man who has or has not some object of general desire; we have also to take into account
all the envy and jealousy and ill-feeling caused in the hearts of others who are striving for the
same object.
There are other objects of desire which seem higher than these and yet are not the
highest. How often, for example, a young man desires affection from someone who cannot
give it to him, who has it not to give! From such a desire as that comes often a great deal of
sadness, jealousy and much other ill-feeling. You will say that such a desire is natural;
undoubtedly it is, and affection which is returned is a great source of happiness. Yet if it cannot
be returned, a man should have the strength to accept the situation, and not allow sorrow to
be caused by the unsatisfied desire. When we say that a thing is natural, we mean that it is
what we might expect from the average man. But the student of occultism must try to rise
somewhat above the level of the average man-- otherwise how can he help that man? We
must rise above that level in order that we may be able to reach down a helping hand. We
must aim not at the natural (in the sense of the average), but at the supernatural.
One who is clairvoyant will readily subscribe to the truth of this great teaching of the
Buddha, that on the whole life is sorrow; for if he looks at the astral and mental bodies of
those whom he meets he will see that they are filled with a vast number of small vortices all
whirling vigorously, representing all sorts of odd little thoughts, little anxieties, little troubles
about one thing or another. All these cause disturbance and suffering, and what is needed most
of all for progress is serenity. The only way to gain peace is to get rid of them altogether, and
that brings us to our Second Noble Truth, the Cause of Sorrow .
We have already seen that the Cause of Sorrow is always desire. If a man has no desires,
if he is not striving for place or power or wealth, then he is equally tranquil whether the wealth
or position comes or whether it goes. He remains unruffled and serene because he does not
care. Being human, he will of course wish for this or that, but always mildly and gently, so that
he does not allow himself to be disturbed. We know, for example, how often people are
prostrated with sorrow when they lose those whom they love by death. But if their affection be
at the higher level, if they love their friend and not the body of their friend, there can be no
sense of separation, and therefore no sorrow. If they are filled with desire for bodily contact
with that friend on the physical plane, then at once that desire will cause sadness. But if they
will put aside that desire and live in the communion of the higher life, the mourning passes
away.
Sometimes people grieve when they find old age coming upon them, when they find their
vehicles not so strong as they used to be. They desire the strength and the faculties that they
once had. It is wise for them to repress that desire, to realize that their bodies have done good
work, and if they can no longer do the same amount as of yore, they should do gently and
peacefully what they can, but not worry themselves over the change. Presently they will have
new bodies; and the way to ensure a good vehicle is to make such use as one can of the old
one, but in any case to be serene and calm and unruffled. The only way to do that is to forget
self, to let all selfish desires cease, and to turn the thought outward to the helping of others as
far as one' s capabilities go.
The Ceasing of Sorrow. Already we see how grief ceases and how calm is to be attained;
it is by always keeping the thought on the highest things. We have still to live in this world,
which has been poetically described as the sorrowful star-- as indeed it is for so many, perhaps
for most people, though it need not be; yet we may live in it quite happily if we are not
attached to it by desire. We are in it, but we must not be of it-- at least not to such an extent
as to let it cause worry and trouble and vexation. Undoubtedly our duty is to help others in
their afflictions and troubles and worries; but in order to do that effectively we must have none
of our own; we must let those ruffles which might cause them slip smoothly past us, leaving us
calm and contented. If we take this lower life with philosophy we shall find that for us sadness
almost entirely ceases.
There may be some who think such an attitude unattainable. It is not so, for if it were the
Lord Buddha would never have prescribed it for us. We can all reach it, and, we ought to do so,
because only when we have attained it can we really and effectively help our brother man.
The last step is called Right Meditation or Right Concentration . This refers not only to the
set meditation which we perform as part of our discipline, but it also means that all through
our lives we should concentrate ourselves on the object of doing good and of being useful and
helpful. In daily life we cannot be always meditating, because of the daily work that we must
all do in the course of our ordinary lives; and yet I am not sure that a statement like that,
made without reservation, is entirely true. We cannot always have our consciousness drawn
away from the physical plane to higher levels; yet it is possible to live a life of meditation in
this sense-- that the higher things are always so strongly present in the background of our
minds that, as I said when speaking about Right Thought, they may instantly come to the front
when that mind is not otherwise occupied. Our life will then be really a life of perpetual
meditation upon the highest and noblest objects, interrupted now and then by the necessity of
putting our thoughts into practice in daily life.
Such a habit of thought will influence us in more ways than we see at the first glance.
Like always attracts like; two people who adopt such a line of thought will presently be drawn
together, will feel an attraction one for the other; and so it may well be that in time a nucleus
of those who habitually hold the higher thought will be gathered together, and will gradually
develop, perhaps into a Theosophical Lodge; at any rate, they will draw together, their
thoughts will react upon one another, and in that way each will greatly help the advancement
of the rest. Again, wherever we go we are surrounded by invisible hosts, Angels, nature-spirits,
and men who have laid aside their physical bodies. The condition of Right Concentration will
attract to us all the best of those various orders of beings, so that wherever we go we shall be
surrounded by good and holy influences.
This is the teaching of the Lord Buddha as He gave it in that first Sermon; it is upon this
teaching that the world-wide Kingdom of Righteousness is founded, the Royal Chariot-Wheels
of which He set in motion for the first time on that Asala Festival so many centuries ago.
When in the far future the time shall come for the advent of another Buddha, and the
present Bodhisattva takes that final incarnation in which the great step will be achieved, He will
preach the Divine Law to the world in whatever form may seem to Him most suited to the
requirements of the era, and then will follow Him in His high office the Master Kuthumi, who
has transferred Himself to the Second Ray to take the responsibility of becoming the
Bodhisattva of the sixth root race.
CHAPTER XV
--------------The End--------------
Thanks to: Anand Golaph – Theosophy
http://www.anandgholap.net/index.html